


Science Leads With or Without Eggs

by ncruuk



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, No Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2016-12-15
Packaged: 2018-09-08 19:15:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 55,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8857561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ncruuk/pseuds/ncruuk
Summary: To most people, Kate Stewart is 'Greyhound One', UNIT's Chief Scientific Officer, the Head of UNIT at the Tower and the one to insist that 'Science Leads'.And for most people, on most days, that just about covers everything most people need to know about UNIT's Kate Stewart.For her family and friends though, she's all that and more.  Unless you want an omelette.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The latest addition to my Kate/Osgood Dr Who set of stories. While they don't need to be read in a particular order except where they are posted as part of a series, the 'headcanon' does accumulate across all the stories. [There's a 'reader's guide' post I put together on tumblr if you would like a bit more guidance on how all the stories interlink.](http://ncruuk.tumblr.com/post/153132349737/ncruuks-kateosgood-fics-a-readers-guide)

“Uh…”  It wasn’t often that Captain Stewart, Commander of Troop, found himself both lost for words and apprehensive, but then it wasn’t often that he met grown men trying not to cry in the corridor.  He was in the process of deciding that he would be best saving his questions until another time, and possibly coming back later, when he was spotted.

 

“Captain Stewart!”  Swallowing thickly, he nodded in acknowledgement and dutifully carried on through the open doorway and approached the desk at which his hailer was sat.

 

“Hello Fran.  I, uh…” Feeling foolish at being nervous, he paused, hoping that she’d treat him gently.  “I’ll come back later,” he volunteered, trying to be helpful.

 

“Only if you’re sure?  She’s free…” His mother’s extremely capable and efficient PA pulled up Kate’s calendar on her screen and scanned it quickly, checking that nothing had moved on the schedule in the last two minutes.  “Yup, free until she leaves for the Palace at 3.”  She looked back up at Max, smiling as she allowed herself a moment to notice how incredibly good looking the Troop Commander was, especially if you went for the brain and brawn combination which she was self-aware enough to know she did.  However, he was also the boss’ son which, no matter how quietly and discretely they both were about that fact, was more than enough of a red flag for her… as was her husband.  But if she’d been ten years younger….  “You did want to see her?” she checked, bringing her mental wanderings back to business, wondering why he was looking so uncertain.

 

“Yes but…” Not quite sure what to say, he glanced back in the direction he’d come from, relieved to see that the corridor was deserted rather than full of puddles of whimpering civil servant.  

 

“She’s in a good mood,” promised Fran, suddenly realising what his difficulty was.  “In spite of what you might have just seen,” she continued, knowing she couldn’t exactly tell him why he might have just see half a dozen grown men reduced to tears by his mother but knowing enough to know that Kate Stewart was in a good mood still.  “Unless…” Suddenly a horrific thought crossed the experienced PA’s mind, “you’re not here with bad news, about Greyhound Two are you?”  As she asked the question, Fran’s eyes strayed to the small monitor that sat on the top of a filing cabinet away to her right where a series of coloured lights flashed coded sequences that equated to security statuses at various UNIT sites.  

 

“No!”  Following her gaze, Max instinctively translated the coded lights into their ‘plain meaning’ and was reassured to see that nothing had changed since he’d last checked immediately before setting off from the Troop Mess to come to Kate’s office - all was, by Troop’s standards, quiet and calm in both London (overlooking the fact that Greyhound One was making grown men cry) and Geneva (where Osgood was probably making lots of scientists feel decidedly stupid).  “It’s uh, nothing to do with work…” Max ran his hand over his head, trying to not lose his nerve and head back to the Mess in double quick time, “...I just wanted to talk to my Mum,” he muttered, knowing that aside from Osgood, Fran was about the only person in the Tower that he’d talk to about his ‘Mum’.

 

“Go right ahead…” Seeing him still be a bit hesitant, Fran forced his hand a little bit by reaching across her desk and pressing the button that activated the intercom between her desk and Kate’s.

 

“Mmm…” They both waited whilst the heard Kate swallow whatever it was she’d just been chewing.  “Sorry.  Yes Fran?”

 

“Your son’s here, if you’re free?” asked Fran, smirking when she saw the look Max shot her, knowing that she shouldn’t be enjoying herself but it was a good day if she got to give her boss an enjoyable meeting, especially if it coincided with her lunch.

 

“Tip top!”  Hearing her response, Max started heading towards the door, although Kate was still talking to Fran on the intercom.  “Which one? Since I’ve just been lectured on the pen being mightier than the sword…” observed Kate somewhat cryptically, just as Max opened the door.

 

“It’s the weak and feeble one Mum,” said Max, stepping into the office and shutting the door behind him as he continued to explain, “only I’m not sure a sword’s going to help.”

 

“Oh?”  Intrigued, Kate put the last mouthful of her sandwich in her mouth and wiped her fingers on a napkin before standing up and, still chewing the last of her lunch, waved Max over to where there was a coffee table and armchairs set up in front of a sofa.  “What’s up?” she asked when she’d finally swallowed the last bit of crust, “and does it need the good whiskey?” she joked, only to realise that, now she could look at him closely as he sat on the sofa with his shoulders slumped, she maybe shouldn’t have teased him.  “Max?” she prompted gently, stepping around the coffee table and sitting down in the other armchair to her usual one so that she was closer to him if it was needed.  “What’s happened?”

 

“I think Jess just dumped me.”

 

“You think?”  Surprised, both that he wasn’t entirely sure and that he thought he’d been dumped, she waited to see what he’d volunteer before she started asking more probing questions: everything had seemed to be fine with him and his girlfriend when she and Os had seen them at lunch on Sunday...

 

“She told me to ‘go away’, ‘bugger off’ and ‘not to touch her’...” repeated Max, looking at the woman who, while not his biological mother, had been there for him throughout all the darkest moments after his parents’ deaths and helped him to discover what he was really good at and celebrated his achievements as he grew up into who he now was.

 

“Are you on duty?”

 

“No, I was on last night, finished at 1100.”  Which, realised Kate belatedly, explained why he wasn’t wearing his uniform and why she was being reminded of her father - Max still used the same aftershave her father had latterly worn, or had her father started to wear the same one Max did?  It was too late to ask him now.

 

“Then,” prompted Kate gently, standing up and heading to the sideboard where she had reinstalled her father’s Tantalus, “why don’t you start at the beginning?” and poured them both a small drink - Max certainly looked like he needed it and based on what it usually took to extract stories from him, she was fairly confident she’d earn hers in the process.  She doubted HM would mind.

 

“I went to find her, in her lab….”

 

* * *

  
  


_ “Knock knock?” Max leaned against the wall just inside the lab door and watched as Jess and a colleague of hers that he didn’t really know, peered over their microscopes, happy to wait until his girlfriend of four months was free.  He didn’t have to wait long and after a few minutes, Jess was free and came over to greet him. _

 

_ “Hello…”  Smiling, she noticed he wasn’t in uniform as she perched on a convenient lab stool a couple of feet from where he was leaning.  “This is a surprise?”  She knew he’d been on night shifts for the last couple of days and hadn’t therefore been expecting to see him until the weekend. _

 

_ “The Colonel’s just redone the roster…” Max rubbed at an itch behind his ear, weighing up what might be the right balance between ‘open and honest boyfriend’ and ‘security conscious soldier’.  “So I’ve got four days off, but then I’m travelling for a bit, so I won’t be around next week…” when he’d been originally supposed to be off for a couple of days and therefore could have dinner with her sister and parents.  “So I won’t be around for the dinner.”  No man would ever, so the Brigadier had once told him and Gordy, volunteer with enthusiasm to have dinner with his ‘in-laws’ the first time after changing his relationship with their daughter, but it wasn’t necessarily to be considered a hostile mission either. (At that point Kate had interrupted and explained it wasn’t just men who experienced that nervousness, and Osgood had to explain that ‘changing the relationship’ didn’t just mean Marriage, but every stage from first kiss to moving in together via spending the weekend together either at home or away).  While Max wasn’t yet at the point where he felt he could relax in the presence of Jess’ parents, he actually quite liked them, so missing the dinner was something he was genuinely sorry about.  Her sister however, was still something of a challenge, one he was working up to, carefully. _

 

_ “Ah.”  Jess tried to remember what had been in the email from her mother that she’d scanned earlier.  “Actually, I think it was just going to be Mum now, so don’t worry.” _

 

_ “Everything ok?” While they weren’t overly affectionate at the Tower, taking their lead from Kate and Osgood about how to behave as a couple who worked together, Max was a bit confused by her rather matter of fact approach to his rather major shift change, not to mention her body language which seemed distant and rigid. _

 

_ “Hmm? Oh, fine.”  Shoving her hands in her lab coat pockets, Jess tried to ‘act normal’ which of course meant she looked anything but.  “I’m just rather busy.” _

 

_ “Of course.”  Understanding more than most what toll duty took on the scientists who worked for UNIT, Max didn’t want to distract or detain her for any longer than he needed to, but he hadn’t just meant to drop his schedule change on her and disappear.  “I was thinking…” _

 

_ “Careful Captain,” teased Jess, or tried to but it didn’t quite come out how she’d intended it to, something that Max also picked up on but tried to ignore. _

 

_ “...I could bring round dinner?” he suggested, thinking of the nice little Italian restaurant not far from where she lived that did take away as long as you were prepared to order in person.  “Bottle of wine?” he added, reaching forwards to give her shoulder a gentle squeeze as they often did as their sort of low key hug. _

 

_ “Not tonight Max,” declined Jess, not pulling away from his ‘hug’ but not relaxing into it like she usually did. _

 

_ “Of course…” Not wanting to push it, he agreed amiably, realising, “you’ve already got plans.” _

 

_ “Yes.”  Except, realised Jess the moment she’d answered so decisively, he was going to at some point be politely curious as to what those plans were.  “No, well, not exactly.” _

 

_ “It’s ok Jess…” Confused, but knowing prying wasn’t kind or appropriate, he was happy to let his idea go, after all it was all rather last minute. _

 

_ “It’s not ok Max…” The one thing Jess knew she couldn’t cope with right now was Max being, well, Max and nice as that just made her feel even worse for not really explaining and for confusing him.  “It’s just…” Looking away from him to the floor, she bit her lip as and counted backwards from five as she concentrated on taking a calming breath or two as she reminded herself that this was Max, wonderful Max who she really rather liked, a lot, and would have to know sometime.  “...Aunt Flo’s visiting.”  There, she’d said it.   _

 

_ “You’ve got an Aunt Flo too?  That’s cool!”   _

 

* * *

  
  


_ “ _ ...and that’s when it got weird.”

 

“Weird regular type weird or weird alien weird?” asked Kate, leaning back in her chair and taking a sip of her drink - she already was fairly confident she’d worked out what the issue was but not only did it never do any harm to be cautious and double check.  As a bonus, it also meant she could have another second to try and not laugh at her crestfallen son’s predicament and obvious misery.

 

“Regular weird, not alien weird.”  Max looked at her, not sure whether to be indignant as Troop Commander that Greyhound One felt it important to ask, or embarrassed that as a guy in his mid twenties he was sitting in his mother’s office needing help understanding what had just happened with his girlfriend.  “I checked.”  By which he meant he’d checked the security logs for the whole Tower. “Nothing since last Tuesday.” 

 

“The Ritargan lottery winners?” guessed Kate, remembering when the group from Ritargia Seven had arrived.  The Ritargan system of five planets had become addicted to the US Presidential election campaign process years ago - in addition to all the diplomatic delegations who exercised their rights to visit Earth expressly to watch the ‘mystery play conclusion’, they ran a planet wide lottery for their allocation of visitor permits each election cycle.  “Sorry, off topic,” she added, seeing Max’s look.  “It got weird?”

 

“Weird,” confirmed Max, seemingly forgetting that he’d come to Kate for help and guidance, help and guidance that he’d only get if he shared a bit more information with her.

 

“Weird how?” Admittedly Kate had a pretty good idea what had probably happened, but if there was one thing that being a parent had taught her, it was that she needed to give her boys several goes at getting their words out.  Although she wasn’t sure she would cope if she had to say ‘weird’ one more time.

 

“Mad with me?” Max sat back on the sofa, rubbing the back of his neck as he remembered Jess’ rather unexpected reaction to his attempt at ‘their sort of hug’ and offer of dinner.  “She didn’t want me to hug her, wanted me to leave her alone…. and to stop mocking her.”  Max frowned and leaned forward again, looking earnestly at Kate.  “I wasn’t mocking her!”

 

“I know you weren’t.”

 

“I don’t know what I did wrong…” Despite his size and obvious physical strength, in that moment, slumped wearily on the sofa, looking up at Kate his face showing the mixture of confusion and distress he clearly felt, she was reminded of the teenager who’d lost both his parents in less than 36 hours and didn’t know what the world was going to throw at him next.  “I wouldn’t hurt her Mum…”

 

“I know Max…” Kate stood up and moved so she could sit next to him on the sofa, all thoughts of amusement gone as she instead focussed on how to make it better for him again.  He may be a highly decorated soldier and a well respected leader of his men but even when he was wearing the uniform he was her son.  “Did she tell you what she’d meant?  When you thought she was talking about Aunt Win’s Flo?”

 

“Sort of…” Max focussed on smoothing out the creases that had formed in his jeans at his knees from sitting down. “...and I googled it.”  He looked up at Kate and she was pleased to see that he was clearly finding something a bit amusing as he didn’t look completely crushed or horrified by his googling experience.  “I guess I now know why Aunt Win’s the only one we call Aunt?”

 

“Yes.”  Kate felt herself sharing his amusement as she tried to picture how Flo would had reacted if an eighteen year old Max had bumped into her in Geneva and called her ‘Aunt Flo’ like he had with Win.  “I’m sorry though…”

 

“What for?”  Max was confused again - what did his Mum have to be sorry about?

 

“It never occurred to any of us to explain why you weren’t to call Flo ‘Aunt Flo’.”  Which, thought Kate, given their current conversation was something of a fundamental oversight and one that she’d probably have to rectify with Gordy at some point.  

 

She knew Gordy had called Flo ‘Aunt Flo’ when he was little - she could still remember him, coming and finding her at one Christmas parties her father and Doris had hosted that she’d actually gone to, full of unexpected enthusiasm as she'd last seen him grumpily colouring under the dining room table as only a seven year old could.  Confused about what was causing his change of mood, she'd agreed to be introduced to his new friend who was offering to draw pictures with him.  When his new friend had turned out to be General Bambera's partner, and he'd looked so proud when he'd managed to introduce Flo as his new Aunt Flo, because 'Aunt Win says she's Aunt Win's better half so she's Aunt too', they had all been so amused that Flo had waved aside Kate's attempts to correct him, clearly too charmed by his genuine excitement at having an adult who would take his colouring seriously.  It hadn't occurred to any of them that he might not have grown out of it, and certainly Flo had never mentioned it.  But that was another day’s problem to deal with, and one that she’d ask Os about too - her girlfriend was rather more astute about how to handle those sorts of situations than Kate herself was, something Kate was ‘women enough’ to admit to even if it did catch other people at UNIT on the wrong foot at times.  

  
“Did you manage to explain to Jess who  _ your  _ Aunt Flo is?” she asked, her thoughts returning to the present and the son that was sat in her office.

 

“Not really…” Max leaned back on the sofa and studied the far wall of the office where, somewhat unexpectedly, there were glass display cabinets with pieces of the Crown Jewels in them.  “I tried to, but that got me into more trouble.”

 

“Oh?”  Kate twisted round so she could see him without moving off the sofa herself.

 

“Apparently the fact that I’m ‘incapable of having a conversation without name dropping UNIT legends’ is another reason I needed to ‘bugger off’.”  He shrugged when he saw her frowning.  “I can see her point I guess - to me you’re Mum, Os, Gramps and Aunt Win but from Jess’ perspective I’m talking about The Boss, her Boss’s Boss, the Brigadier and General Bambera.  And you’re definitely all Legends,” he teased, playfully nudging her leg with his knee which saw her smile and give him an equally friendly shove back.  “But I guess that’s it for me and Jess,” he sighed, sobering again.

 

“Why do you say that?”

 

“I’m not giving up family for a girl,” declared Max quickly, “not after everything that happened with Nana and Tata…”  At the mention of his birth parents, he lapsed into silence, his fist clenching as he tried to keep his composure.  Without speaking, Kate reached forwards and wrapped her hand over his fist and squeezed gently, encouraging him to relax if he could.  When that didn’t elicit much of a reaction from him, she shifted on the sofa until she was sitting properly next to him, there for when she was needed.  When it was clear that he didn’t really have any more words that he wanted to say, Kate started to talk, picking her words carefully.

 

“As proud as I am when you introduce me to people as ‘your Mum’, if there was anything we could have done to ensure your Nana and Tata were here you know I’d have done it…”  

 

She’d had some fairly horrific nightmares in those first months and years after the deaths of her friends, like she knew anyone would in their situation, like Max himself had.  What if one more or less student had delayed or accelerated Freddie’s departure from the Department that afternoon, making her drive along that road a few minutes earlier or later?  What if the fire brigade had been able to get her out of her car a minute or two quicker?  What if Johnny hadn’t taken that final Patrol?  What if he’d been on the other side of the street?  Those nightmares were bad enough, but it was the later ones, once she’d taken over as Head of UNIT at the Tower, that saw the nightmares become extra vivid.  Having a day job that involved various encounters with aliens who found the conventional Earth-bound laws of time and space to be merely suggestions had, over the years, seen her subconscious test her resolve when it came to ‘sacrificing the few to protect the many’ in nightmares that were increasingly fantastical and possible.  While many of them had been centred around Os and those bloody boxes of the Doctor’s, not all of them had been, with the deaths of Max’s parents featuring on several occasions.

 

“I wouldn’t let you.”

 

“Pardon?”

 

“Use alien stuff to bring them back.”  Max had to grin in spite of the seriousness of their thoughts and conversation - it wasn’t often he or his brother managed to make Kate slack-jawed in surprise.  “I’ll admit it’s been tempting to think about sometimes, at least when I was first learning about what the Doctor and others can do.  For a while I was quite angry too…” He watched as a look of comprehension appeared to pass briefly over her face before she quickly, ever the diplomat, hid it away behind her ‘I’m listening’ expression.  “Yeah, that angry phase?  Not such a mystery as it happens.  I was angry because I thought it all meant that when Nana and Tata were dying, you and Gramps could have got aliens to help make them live, but it doesn’t work like that.”

 

“No,” agreed Kate, feeling her eyes dampen with a mixture of pride in what she was seeing him cope with and sadness that she was the one who got to see him grown up, rather than Freddie and Johnny.  “It doesn’t.”  She squeezed his now relaxed hand again, this time drawing comfort from the contact rather than offering support.  “How did you find out?”

 

“That it doesn’t work like that?  Or that it was that causing my anger?”

 

“Both?  Either?”

 

“Aunt Win.  And the Doctor.”  Max opened his fist out and interwove his fingers with hers.  “But mainly Aunt Win.”  He thought for a moment before chuckling.  “Actually, I think it was  _ Aunt  _ Flo’s idea that Aunt Win should talk to me.  She can be quite persistent, can’t she?”

 

“Win?”

 

“Flo.”

 

“That’s putting it mildly,” agreed Kate, thinking back on the various times she’d found Win waiting for her in her office in Geneva and starting the conversation with ‘this is Flo’s idea, I’m just the messenger…’ or words to that effect.  “I’m not going to ask when these conversations happened.”

 

“I wouldn’t tell you.”  Max grinned cheekily at her, feeling a bit better now he’d talked to her.

 

“Os will know,” continued Kate, as if he hadn’t spoken, although she did pay attention to his theatrical groan that was confirmation her hunch was correct - Osgood always knew when something significant had happened to one of the boys.  It was one of the many things Kate was especially grateful for, that the boys got on so well with Osgood - it wasn’t a parental relationship, but a friendship that meant Osgood was at times their confident or sounding board as well as their champion and source of inspiration.  “Which is good enough for me.”  

 

Kate didn’t need to say that she wouldn’t be asking Os to tell her about it.  Max could tell from her reaction that she hadn’t already known about either the extra guidance and support he’d received from their friends, nor that he’d subsequently discussed it with Osgood.  That Osgood in turn hadn’t mentioned anything to Kate, which would in turn be because she was respecting Max’s wishes and, knowing the Doctor, probably his too, was also not something that remotely bothered Kate.  Right from the beginning, Os had managed to help the boys work things through, things they told Kate when the time was right.  For Max, the time was right now.

 

“Thanks Mum…” Feeling like some of the weight he’d acquired was lifted from his shoulders, Max evidently felt he’d taken up enough of her time and was preparing to leave her in peace to continue her afternoon doing whatever it was that she needed to do.

 

“Where do you think you’re going?”  Were it not for the amused expression on her face, Max would have assumed he was about to be told off about something.  Confused, but happy that she felt she had a few more minutes before Fran really started hassling her to do something moderately important as far as UNIT business went (ike go meet the Queen, he relaxed back into the sofa and tried to sound laid back as he answered her question.

 

“To avoid my brother and drown my sorrows?” He was only semi-serious: he didn’t really mean to avoid Gordy, it was just a bit unfortunate that he was at the point in his still rather new relationship with Soph that he wasn’t quite what Max was sure he was in the mood for.  In practice, he didn’t really have any plans other than avoiding Jess for a bit…  “Ok, so not that.”  It was clear from her frown that she disagreed with his plan.

 

“Do you want it to be over with Jess?”

 

“What?” Her change of topic caught him off guard, although only for a moment.  “Of course not!”  It was his turn to frown, wondering what exactly he was missing… “Are you saying she didn’t mean it?”

 

“I’m saying that she didn’t mean it,” confirmed Kate, standing up and heading to her desk to grab her pen and a pad of paper, before returning to sit in the armchair she’d started in.

 

“But…” Confused, Max reached for his glass of almost forgotten about whiskey and took a sip, his eyes widening when he realised she’d not been joking when she’d mentioned ‘good’ whiskey.  “She was very clear, and very… cross.”  That wasn’t quite what he meant, but he couldn’t actually think how to describe Jess’s mood.

 

“Have you got enough whiskey?”

 

“Uh…” He looked down at the crystal glass that he knew Gramps would have drunk from in this office, though probably not this sofa.  “I think so?”  He looked up at her, suspicious.  “Why?”

 

“Because what I’m about to say, I say as a woman who’s had a girlfriend longer than you’ve been shaving…” Kate took a sip of her own whiskey, before adding almost as an afterthought, “...and I suspect that part way through you’re going to remember I’m your Mum.”  She leaned back in her chair and tilted her head towards the sideboard.  “You know where the decanter is when that happens.”

 

“O...kay…”  Right now, despite his confusion, there was only one question that Max wanted to know the answer to.  “Has Gordy had this conversation with you?”

 

“Good God no!”  Horrified at the suggestion, Kate took another brief fortifying sip as they both tried not to think about the girl that Gordy had found himself entangled with for rather too long for anyone’s liking.  “Anyway, I don’t think she’d have let herself be influenced by anything as mundane as mood swings.”

 

“She was just a bitch all the time.”  There was a long pause as Kate watched and waited for Max to finish blushing when he realised what he’d let slip.  “Sorry Mum.”  One thing that Kate had been very clear on, as his Nana had been too now he thought about it, was that he was not to use ‘name-calling’ as a way of describing or referencing people.  It was an important lesson that was hugely relevant when navigating the school playground, but not one Kate was overly concerned about upholding in adulthood.  Plus, as far as Kate was concerned at least, in the context of Gordy’s ex-girlfriend, it wasn’t a name but a perfectly appropriate adjective.

 

“No need to apologise for being accurate, just don’t tell your brother?”

 

“He already knows…and Soph’s much better for him.”

 

“Agreed.  But back to you…” Kate put down her whiskey glass and picked up her pen and pad, leaning back in her chair and crossing her right leg over her left at the knee so she could comfortably make notes.  “Remember  _ the talk  _ we had, when you came home for the holidays after they’d covered reproduction in science class?”

 

“You mean the sex talk?” asked Max, feeling himself blushing again as he remembered how she’d helped them with their biology revision as only a former biology lecturer could, but then made sure they understood about safe sex and how to be responsible… and to talk to Gramps about any  _ practical  _ advice they might need.

 

“Yes, and stop blushing,” she teased, tapping his knee with the toe of her unexpectedly orange shoes.  “Don’t worry, it’s not a revision session, or an interrogation - trust me, I’m quite happy presuming you’re still a virgin.”  If she wasn’t conscious that her next conversation of substance was going to be with the Sovereign, she’d have tried to hide her amusement with another sip of her whiskey, but she’d not had enough lunch for that, so instead she ploughed on.  “I just realise that I forgot to mention something then that’s rather relevant now.”

 

“You did?”  Max was glad she wasn’t dwelling on his virginity (or lack of) as, hard as it was to believe, he was starting to think that there was one thing more embarrassing than having  _ the sex talk  _ with your mother as a 14 year old boy, and that was having your mother acknowledge that, as a twenty-four year old you’d actually  _ had sex _ .

 

“Hormones...”

 

“Uh, you covered those…” He could still remember them - oestrogen, progesterone, testosterone...schoolboy sniggers as they’d learned how testosterone influenced sexual motivation as rather graphically illustrated by their housemaster’s dog with the legs of anyone foolish enough to stand still in his vicinity.

 

“...and pain.”

 

“Pain?”  Max blinked, sobering suddenly, all earlier embarrassment forgotten.

 

“Can be, yes.”  Kate shifted position slightly, silently thankful for Os’s patience as she’d gone through the challenges of the menopause a couple years ago, ending that particular monthly trial for her.

 

“What do I do?”  Horrified at the idea of Jess being in pain, Max looked intensely at Kate, clearly determined to put together a plan of action to make his probably-not-ex-girlfriend better.

 

“You’re such a soldier…” teased Kate, suddenly being reminded of his father.  “Your father was exactly the same.”

 

“Tata?”  Max stood up and went over to the sideboard to get the decanter of whiskey from the Tantalus, momentarily distracting himself from the wave of emotion Kate’s mention of his father had triggered by thinking of the times Gramps must have poured whiskey into this glass, just as Max was now doing, when it was his office.  “You talked to Tata about this?”

 

“Before he and Freddie were married…” Kate waited while he returned to the sofa, his glass containing a tiny amount of whiskey.  “I found him stood outside her room in Halls one night, about as confused as you were, only your mother had thrown her shoes at him until he’d got the message and left.”

 

“What happened?” Momentarily distracted by his own predicament, Max was fascinated to learn about another aspect of his parents’ life.

 

“I gave Johnny my room key, told him to make tea for us and where he could find my secret stash of biscuits while I went and talked to Freddie to find out what had happened.  Then, I went back to my room and helped your father the same way I’m going to help you.”  Kate nudged Max’s knee with the toe of her shoe again, helping him to stay in the present with her and not get lost in memories of his father.  “Clearly my advice worked then...but I don’t know Jess as well as I knew Freddie…” She knew Jess rather better than she’d ordinarily expect to know any of the junior scientists, but Freddie had been her best friend since they’d been assigned to share the same bathroom in their University Hall of Residence as eighteen year olds…  “Now…” She took the cap off her pen and quickly tested that it still had ink by drawing a quick squiggle in the top corner of the paper.  “...I know you’re like your father and find pain easier to understand than hormones, but that’s where we need to start…”

 

“Hormones.  Oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone?”  Somehow, knowing he was following quite so literally in his father’s footsteps made this conversation less embarrassing - if Tata needed help with this from Kate then he would grow up and pay attention… and try not to think about any of his parents, biological, adoptive or honorary having sex… or hormones.

 

“Correct.”  In the interests of expediency and simplicity, Kate didn’t bother to mention that what they’d learned at school was something of an oversimplification.  “And at school you learnt about how the levels change at different times during the menstrual cycle.”  She was going to fully shift into ‘lecturer’ mode if she wasn’t careful.

 

“Uh yeah…” Max thought hard for a moment, trying to remember revising at the dining room table with Gordy before trooping out to find Kate in some flowerbed or the greenhouse for the obligatory ‘pop quiz’ to check they’d actually been studying rather than messing about.  “Egg release, wall thickening...zygotes and gametes?” 

 

“Gametes before Zygotes but yes, well remembered.”  Kate had to smile when he sat a little straighter on being told he’d remembered it correctly.  “But what’s more important right now is what happens to emotions when those hormone levels change… and for that there’s no easy revision card.  Everyone’s different.  And you’ll make mistakes and do the wrong thing.”

 

“But surely…”

 

“Nope.”  At Max’s indignant look, Kate almost laughed as she continued to explain.  “Every woman copes differently with the hormone changes - and before you think it’s easier for Os and me because we’re women? No.  This is one of those things where direct experience is only of limited use.  The only person who knows what it’s like for Jess is Jess…” she watched as his indignance changed to hope and then to dejection.  “But I can give you some useful suggestions that should help until you can get some better ideas from Jess in about five years time.”

 

“Five years?”

 

“Maybe three… but my point is you’re going to have to be patient.  We don’t easily talk about this with our partners.”

 

“You mean scientists?”

 

“I mean women.  Your father was working entirely on instinct until after they were married.”  And only then because one day, unable to cope with Freddie semi-complaining about how, when she was miserable on  _ those  _ days, Johnny was very sweet and brought her hot chocolate with cream in it, but why couldn’t he also put marshmallows in it, Kate had snapped.  In what was a rather more robust response than was probably wise, Kate had pointed out that Freddie was lucky to get any hot chocolate, never mind with cream, and where did Freddie think Jonny had got the idea from?  And, furthermore, since Kate hadn’t known about Freddie’s fondness for marshmallows until that moment, she hadn’t included it in her suggestions to Jonny all those years ago.  But, more to the point, had Freddie opened her mouth and said anything to Johnny?  Actually, in retrospect realised Kate, it was something of a testament to their friendship that Freddie still spoke to her after that, before she pointedly returned her wandering thoughts to the here and now and Max.  “And no, Os and I weren’t much better.”

 

“Not going there,” promised Max quickly, and sincerely.  “So, hormones changing changes emotions… that’s why I had to ‘bugger off’?”

 

“Another day you’d probably have been asked to come back later?  Or meet her at the gate?”  Kate realised she wasn’t actually sure how they were conducting their relationship and quickly moved her thinking on, but clearly her examples were helpful enough.

 

“Oh.”  That made more sense, now Max thought about it.  “So I ignore it? No, I don’t mean that...You mean try to go with it and not pick a fight right?  Like...”  He had a sudden flash of memory of walking into the kitchen one evening and finding Kate and Os in the middle of what sounded like a fight, so he had quickly turned around and left again but, on reflection, it wasn’t a fight but rather Os being grumpy and Kate… “... not going more extreme.  So if Jess wants me to bugger off I give her some space but come back a bit later with a mug of tea?  Rather than think she’s dumped me?”

 

“Got it in one.”  

 

“Ok, I can do that.”  Feeling confident, Max was starting to think this was going to be straightforward when he remembered something.  “Wait, you said hormones and pain.”

 

“I did indeed. Since I’ve got the wrong shoes on, please imagine I’ve just kicked you in the stomach and kneed you in the groin.”

 

“Okay…” He knew better than to ask why, knowing that she’d probably proceed to provide a practical demonstration in spite of her inappropriate footwear.  “Eye-watering pain imagined.”  True to his word, he involuntarily started drawing his knees together and hunching his shoulders.

 

“Welcome to period pain.”

 

“Seriously?”  Max stopped his imagination and looked at his mother aghast.

 

“With the potential added horrors of stomach ache, headache, nausea and that’s before the blood in your knickers.”  Never let it be said that a Lethbridge-Stewart shied away from specifics.

 

“Shit.”

 

“Succinct but correct.”

 

“One of my guys gets that messed up on an Exercise and the MO keeps him on light duty for 72 hours…”

 

“I dealt with the Master…” and Cybermen and thinking Os was dead and a host of other things in a lifetime of being a woman, but she wasn’t going there.  Not when she had to leave to see the Queen in two minutes and after her last meeting which, to say it hadn’t gone well for the bureaucracy obsessed pen pushers was something of an understatement .  Fortunately Max was also aware of the time constraints and left well alone.

 

“Is this why Tata knew how to make really amazing hot chocolate?  With cream and marshmallows?” asked Max, another memory taking on a new meaning all of a sudden.

 

“Yes.”  Kate quickly scribbled down some thoughts on the pad and, tearing off the top sheet of paper, passed it to him.  “Sorry to finish in a bit of a rush, but that was something that always made Freddie feel better.  Those are some suggestions, or themes might be a better description, but you know Jess better than me.”

 

“And I just turn up on her doorstep?” asked Max, scanning the list and seeing how, based on what he’d learned in the last few minutes, it made sense and, more importantly, he could work out what Jess would perhaps appreciate.

 

“Maybe text first?”  Anything more that Kate might have wanted to say was cut off by the knock on the door that they both knew was Fran’s ‘you’re not late but you’ve got one minute’ knock.  If Kate didn’t appear in the doorway soon, Fran would be coming in to extract her.

 

“Thanks Mum.”  Max stood up with her, the sparkle of the Crown Jewels catching his eye as he stood, holding his gaze although from how he was stood, he was clearly wanting to say something else.

 

“You’ll be fine, I promise.”  And it he wasn’t, well, she might find time in her schedule to do a snap inspection of the exo-biology department and have a chat with one of them…

 

“I know you’ve got to go, but have you time for a hug?”  asked Max as they both heard the door open, signalling that Kate really didn’t have the time.

 

“Of course I’ve got time!” 

 

Standing in the doorway, Fran’s initial instinct was to glare in her Boss’ direction as, like so often was the case for the busy UNIT leader, she really didn’t have the time, especially as this was the one meeting in the diary that Kate really didn’t like to be anything other than early for.  However, just because that was her preference, didn’t mean she was any more punctual at getting ready to leave for the meeting than she was the rest of the time.

 

But one of the things that made Fran so good at her job was that she rarely went with her initial instinct, preferring to wait a split second longer and see what her second instinct was, since that was usually the better one to follow.  As Max stepped towards her, Kate opened her arms to hug him, enabling Kate to also raise a warning finger to Fran that he didn’t see, confirming that Fran’s second instinct was in fact the better one.  Nodding, Fran held up her hand with fingers spread wide in the universal signal of ‘five minutes’ before pulling the door quietly shut and heading to her desk.  Picking up her phone, she hit speed dial.

 

“Hello?  Yes.  Greyhound One’s delayed by a few minutes.  Thanks.”  Replacing the phone, she did one final check of the briefing papers that she knew Kate wanted to skim in the car on the journey across Central London to the Palace before picking up Kate’s coat, ready for her to pull on as they headed for the car.  So what if they were going to cut it a bit fine - that was why Fran always planned Kate’s diary on the basis that they had to sit in traffic and Jenkins always had the outriders ready so they could make the journey with a blue light escort.  It meant they always had an extra five minutes for Kate to deal with the really important things… and Fran couldn’t think of anything much more important than a mother giving her son a hug, however old he might be…


	2. Chapter 2

Pulling the keycard out of the door lock, Osgood was relieved to see the little green light and, with perhaps more force than the door handle really deserved, opened the door to her hotel room.  Holding the door open with her shoulder, Osgood reached for the keycard slot on the wall that, once the keycard was in, meant the light switch would work.  Having forcibly shoved the keycard into the slot, the  light switches were the next inanimate objects to be firmly put in their place as finally she could see into her hotel bedroom and, off to her left, the bathroom.  Pulling on the handle of her wheeled suitcase, Osgood walked fully into the bedroom, not caring that the door slammed loudly behind her.  Abandoning the case at the bottom of the bed, she took a brief moment to scan the room, satisfying herself that the housekeeping was as this soulless but clean and fairly comfortable chain promised it would be, before heading back to inspect the bathroom. 

 

You didn’t come to Geneva as often as she did, staying in this particular hotel as often as she had, without learning which were the ‘better’ rooms to stay in.  A hotel room with a view was of little interest to the Senior Scientist who knew she rarely left UNIT Central Command’s clutches before sunset and invariably was back in the offices not long after sunrise.  Most of the time, Osgood didn’t really care much beyond whether the bed was semi-soft, made with the blankets and pillows that didn’t trigger her asthma and had a shower.  As she headed towards the bathroom, she pulled out her mobile phone and hit speed dial.  

 

Twelve rings later, she hung up rather than leave a message and, confused, sat down on the side of the bath to study her phone.

 

It was 22:17 CET, which meant it was 21:17 BST and, since it was Tuesday, a day she really shouldn’t have got the answerphone, unless there was an incident of at least level three severity.  But there wasn’t a a level three incident - she’d have known about it if there had been.  Concerned enough to reach for her trouser pocket, Osgood felt the outline of her inhaler, drawing comfort from the confirmation that she had it close at hand.  Logically, she knew there was another one in her suitcase (she always travelled with a spare), but logic and UNIT business trips were not often compatible, so the best assurance was the tangible and physical proof of a viable contingency plan.  It was then, and only then that she typed out a text message and pressed send.

 

* * *

  
  


Shaking the compost off her hands, Kate picked up her glasses and her mobile phone from where she’d remembered to put them when she’d popped into the greenhouse a few minutes after returning home from the Palace.  Glasses on, she saw it was a text from Os.  Smiling she opened the message, only to frown as she read the short and to the point text.

 

_ At hotel, have new room.  Where are you? _

 

Sending a brief reply, Kate put aside the phone and was about to take off her glasses and resume her repotting when she saw the time on the phone’s screen.  

 

21:18

 

On a Tuesday.

 

Not waiting for Os to reply, Kate reached for the phone again and hit speed dial.

 

* * *

  
  


Still sat on the side of the bath, Osgood was staring at her phone, not sure whether she wanted to laugh or groan at Kate’s reply.  However, before she could decide what to do, her phone lit up and a split second later it began to vibrate and ring.

 

“I’m sorry, I was in the greenhouse…” began Kate the moment she heard Osgood answer the call.

 

“ _ Was _ in the greenhouse?” asked Osgood, wondering even as she asked the question why she was being so pedantic.

 

“Am in the greenhouse,” amended Kate lightly, taking off her glasses and putting them in her pocket, “although I’m going to get some supper.”  She noticed Osgood’s pedantry but didn’t react to it other than to make a mental note: red flag number one.

 

“That was going to be my next question.”

 

“Have you eaten?” As she turned out the greenhouse light and set off back to the house, Kate tried to remember what there might be that she could make into a quick dinner, preferably one handed so she didn’t need to hang up if Os wanted to talk which, if her instincts were remotely up to scratch, she would.

 

“Yes.”

 

Kate waited a moment, expecting a description of what the food was, but none came: red flag number two.

 

“Does the new room have a bath?”  Kate knew that last night’s hotel room, as well as being impregnated with smoke, only had a shower.  After a less than brilliant night thanks to her asthma, Osgood had been forced to request a new room and, since she was having to move anyway, had requested that they move her to a room that also had a bath.

 

“Yes.”  Osgood looked behind her at said piece of plumbing.  “I’m sat on the edge of it.”

 

“Where’s your coat?” As she asked the question, Kate peered into the fridge, relieved to find some bits and pieces that would make an acceptable quick meal.

 

“Wearing it.”  And that, realised Kate straightening up and shutting the fridge door, her need for sustenance immediately forgotten about for the moment, was red flag number three.

 

“Os?”

 

“Mmm?”

 

“Put the phone down and pick it up again when you’re IN the bath.”

 

“It’s fine…” protested Osgood, currently not really feeling like moving anywhere in particular.

 

“Race you?”  teased Kate gently, trapping the small phone against her ear with her shoulder so she could wash her hands in the sink.

 

“What’s the course?”

 

“You into the bath before I’ve made scrambled egg.”  Kate turned off the water and reached for the hand towel.  “With bits in.”

 

“Bits?”  Curiosity sparked, Osgood stood up and trudged back into the bedroom, pulling off her coat and dumping it untidily on the desk as she went, her focus now on her case, which she needed things from if she was going to have a bath.

 

“Cheese, tomato…” Kate heard the ‘whump’ as the case landed on the luggage stand.  As sterile and characterless as the hotel room were in Geneva, at least it meant she could easily picture where Osgood was.  “Why do we keep the eggs in the fridge?”

 

“It’s where the egg rack is.”  Osgood concentrated on opening her case and finding what she needed which, after plenty of experience doing these sorts of trips, was obligingly on the top.  With the phone trapped against her ear with her shoulder, mirroring Kate’s, she set off back to the bathroom, adding as an afterthought.  “Why is the egg rack in the fridge?”  Stopping before she stepped into the bathroom, she looked down at her feet and, sighing, turned back round and returned to the desk so she could lean on the edge while she unlaced and removed her boots.

 

“It came with the fridge.”  Kate returned to said fridge, this time with clean hands and started to assemble the assorted odds and ends that she could put together into what she’d hope would be an omelette but, given her lack of flipping technique, would end up as what Gordy had called ‘surprised eggs’ when he was little since the ingredients were always a surprise to him.  The eggs, so he claimed, were also always surprised to be scrambled. “But there’s nothing about an egg that needs refrigeration.”

 

“Isn’t there?”  Osgood, back in the bathroom with sock clad feet,  watched the bath start to fill with water, only to belatedly remember that this hotel’s hot water always took far longer to arrive than the hot water at home.  Turning off the cold tap completely, she opened the hot tap on full and waited until she felt the water start to run warm over her fingers before finally, turning on the cold tap a little bit.  “What’s French for bubblebath?”  Her French was serviceable, approaching fluent in a ‘business’ context - fortunately the French for ‘Dalek’ was, at least as far as UNIT officials were concerned, ‘Dalek’, and she seemed to do fairly well with a ‘presume male until corrected’ when it came to definite articles.  Mainly though, she was just very glad she’d not had to attend the Terminology Committee’s meeting when the Francophile membership had put ‘Missy et Le Matrice’ on the agenda… it had apparently taken 4 hours of intense debate to finally conclude that, in this context, ‘Matrice’ was an ‘adjectif de nationalite’ and so remained as it had always been.  Just.  But Kate’s French had, unsurprisingly given she’d lived for five years in Geneva, always been more ‘everyday’ and ‘domestic’ as well as alien.

 

“Umm…” It took Kate a moment to shift into French.  “Huiles de bains? Wait, is there bains moussant?”

 

“There’s both.”  Kate almost laughed at how indignant Os sounded that she was being required to take a decision this late in her day.  But she didn’t, as that would have triggered a critical number of red flags.

 

“Huiles is oil, moussant is bubbles…” Kate spotted some ham and mushrooms that would go with her eggs so grabbed them as well, only to realise as she shut the fridge door that after all that, she’d forgotten to get the eggs out.  “Both?” she suggested, before adding as something of a non-sequitur.  “Why does the fridge not reopen immediately?”

 

“Why are you trying to reopen the fridge door?” Osgood poured some of the ‘bains moussant’ and all of the little bottle of ‘huiles de bains’, glad that this hotel chain, for all its other bland touches, did do decent complimentary bathroom products that, on the whole, didn’t trigger her allergies.  “They’re both lavender...” she concluded after a tentative sniff at the slightly scented steam.

 

“I think I got cherry blossom last week.”  The fridge door succumbed to Kate’s latest tug, surprising her slightly but she managed to not drop her mobile, just.

 

“That’s why I sneezed then.”  Osgood was pleased to have that mystery resolved, as it had been frustrating to suddenly start sneezing.  “You don’t normally make me sneeze, but the pink one does.  And the door sticks because closing the door creates a small vacuum for a couple of seconds as the room temperature air is chilled and contracts into a smaller volume.”

 

“I promise not to use the pink ones again.”  Eggs retrieved, Kate grabbed the butter as an afterthought and shut the fridge door a second time.  “I forgot to get the eggs out.  Ah, that’s why the departmental freezers were such hard work then.  Colder temperate and better seals than a kitchen fridge.”

 

“Oops.”  Testing the water temperature, Osgood adjusted the taps slightly.  “And yes, laboratory freezers will sustain a vacuum hold for longer than a kitchen fridge.”  She tested the water again.  “Back in a minute.”

 

“Take two,” encouraged Kate, happy to continue making her dinner with the phone trapped against her ear with her shoulder, at least for as long as it took to get all the ingredients into the pan, although it would have been a rather different challenge if she’d not mastered the art of opening eggs one-handed as a university student.

 

* * *

  
  


A few minutes later, when she was sat at the kitchen table, a plate of ‘surprised eggs’ and some toast in front of her, Kate sipped her glass of water and tried to decide if she could hold the phone far enough away from her face so she could work out what button she needed to press to turn on the speaker function.  As a result, she completely missed the various audible clues that would have warned her Osgood was back within reach of her phone.

 

“Kate?”  Osgood experimentally blew on some of the bubbles while she waited for a response, having already decided she wasn’t going to start to be concerned by her lover’s non-response until she’d called her name three times, which meant ‘concern’ was at least 30 seconds away, since Kate didn’t need her glasses to scramble eggs and so would be a bit delayed in finding the speaker button.

 

“I’m here…” Osgood blew on some more bubbles while she waited for Kate to return as, having announced her presence, Kate disappeared again, although not too far away given Os could hear the blonde’s muttering.  “Right, here now,” declared Kate, her voice taking on that slightly hollow quality that confirmed Kate had managed to successfully find the speaker function.  “Sorry…”

 

“S’ok.  Your glasses are on the fridge.”  Obediently Kate turned around whilst she chewed her first mouthful and smiled when she saw that yes, her glasses were sitting on top of the fridge.

 

“Thanks.”  She didn’t need to ask Os how she knew - she was Os.  “How are the bubbles?”

 

“Frothy…”  Kate heard a whistling sound, immediately followed by a spluttering noise which made her smile.  “Pfft…ppt….tp….”

 

“On your nose and glasses?” she guessed, able to picture Os trying unsuccessfully to glare at the end of her nose through her glasses, her hair pinned up in a messy bun, holding the (waterproofed) phone to her ear.  “Which you’ve just wiped with a soapy hand?”

 

“Yes.”  There was a squeaky sound as Osgood shifted in a better position and took her glasses off: she didn’t need to see her toes; she didn’t even like her toes.  

 

“Feel better?” Kate took a noisy bite from her toast while she waited for a response, absently noting that if she’d still been holding the phone to her ear not only would Os probably be deafened by the crunching, but she’d have a buttery phone.  Waterproof was one thing… “Are the phones butter resistant too?”

 

“Yes, hot water’s nice…” Osgood experimented with pointing her toes and flexing her feet a couple of times, enjoying the fact that she wasn’t bashing them against the end of the bath.  “And the bath’s long.”  So long, she realised, she should probably stop wiggling about so much in case she slipped and dunked herself - she knew she wouldn’t have the patience to dry her hair and if she slept with it wet she would have to start all over again in the morning with a shower and hairwash… and still have to dry her hair.  “Butter?  Yes - the polymer coating has water and oil resistant properties.  I’ve not tested it with butter specifically….” but she had tested it with various alien contaminants, carefully selected for their wide range of characteristics. “But it would have several common characteristics with Tiburgan secretions, which I did test.”  She blew on some bubbles that had drifted a bit closer to her nose than she was comfortable with.  “Actually, those secretions have common characteristics with bath oil and soap now I think about it, so the phones are bath proof too.”

 

“I could have told you that.”  Kate swallowed her final mouthful of toast and picked up her phone again, confidently hitting the right button so the speaker function turned off now she knew the handset was butterproof.  “How bad was it?” The shift in her tone was all the cue Osgood needed to know that her lover wasn’t enquiring about her phone-resistance tests.

 

“Not as bad as it might have been…” Osgood let herself sink a little lower into the hot water, finding the feeling of her head resting against the edge of the bath to be more comfortable than she’d expected.  “For an Oversight Committee they’re overlooking a lot.”

 

“Not many of them are scientists,” reminded Kate gently, leaning back in her chair as, final mouthful of egg consumed, she could devote herself properly to the conversation.  “They’re a ‘panel of my peers’ remember?”   Aside from Win Bambera, they were mostly stuffed shirts whose only real grasp of science was that it was something they couldn’t grasp, which did rather render them incompatible with the whole ‘Science Leads’ approach she was continually working on.

 

“General Bambera’s the most scientific, so none of them are scientists.  But they should be.  You are.”  As far as Osgood was concerned, it was that straightforward - Kate was the UNIT Chief Scientific Officer and UNIT London Head, and more to the point, she had become the Chief Scientific Officer  _ before  _ she became the London Head.  The people she’d spent most of the day and what felt like half the night being cross-examined by were definitely not scientists.  Still, Osgood knew that she couldn’t allow any frustration she might have with the imperfection of the system to influence how she conducted herself, for Kate’s sake if not her own.  “I didn’t tell them that.”  Osgood blew on the bubbles again, realising she could now see clearly enough through the bubbles to be able to see the surface of the water rippling where she blew, ripples that didn’t fully propagate through the bubbles.  “Not exactly anyway.”  Kate could hear the beginnings of doubt creep into Osgood’s voice and didn’t like that the day was having that effect on her lover.

 

“Then tell them tomorrow morning,” suggested Kate seriously when she’d got her temper back under control - she wasn’t cross with Osgood, but with the idiots on the Committee.  She was far more concerned about Osgood’s worries than anything that particular Committee could throw at her if they made a fuss.  “Best not to use diagrams though.”

 

_ “ _ I can’t do that!”  Osgood blew on the water which was now rippling very clearly as the bubbles were nearly gone.  “Tell them I mean.”  She concentrated on sitting up more securely in what she was now noticing was a much cooler bath than she’d started with.  “I can explain things without diagrams.”

 

“You can tell them, and you should, if they annoy you.”  Osgood being able to explain things without diagrams was a given.  “That didn’t sound very bubbly?”  In fact, it had sounded like decidedly bubble free and therefore probably cool water which wasn’t going to be very relaxing to sit in.

 

“It’s not.  But I feel better now.”  Osgood reached for her glasses and, with the world back in focus, considered her options - add more hot water and bubbles to prolong her bath or get out of the bath and head to bed.   “Thank you.”

 

“Ok…” Kate wasn’t exactly sure what she was being thanked for but knew better than to ask as it would only delay Osgood finishing her bath.  “And thank you, for dinner.”

 

“I didn’t make your dinner…”

 

“No, but if you hadn’t texted, I’d still be in the greenhouse.  Which reminds me, I’ve got some papers to read…” Which, now she thought about it, was the more significant contribution that Osgood had made to her well-being this evening: Kate knew that one more night of not really eating dinner wouldn’t do her that much harm in the overall scheme of things whereas turning up at the Tower tomorrow having forgotten to finish the briefcase full of work Fran had given her?  Those wounds would sting.

 

“I’ll ring you in a bit,” declared Osgood, “on the house phone.” There was an extension in Kate’s study, as well as one in the Hall, kitchen and their bedroom.  In fact the only place that Kate regularly disappeared to at home that didn’t have a phone was the greenhouse, but since it hadn’t occurred to Kate that an extension could be put in there, Osgood wasn’t going to mention it.  “If that’s ok?”

 

“Take your time.  I’ve got the dishwasher to load first.”  


	3. Chapter 3

Exchanging her pen for the mug of tea she’d made, Kate looked thoughtfully at the report she’d just finished reading, wondering whether what she’d just read was making her cross or sad.  It wasn’t that a bad report in terms of the quality of the work involved.  Unlike some she’d read over the years it adhered to linguistic conventions, contained a coherent narrative that didn’t contradict itself and managed to set out some conclusions and recommendations.  It just missed the point, any point, worth making, unless the point and purpose of UNIT was to protect the Earth and its people by ensuring it was annihilated at some point in the next three months because by Kate’s conservative estimate, that was about how long it would take, assuming they survived until the weekend.  Which saw her return to her original pondering - was she cross that such a proposal only had her signature stopping it become catastrophic reality or sad that it had got through so many people already?  And if she was cross…

 

Momentarily wondering if she should abandon her tea and exchange it for something stronger, Kate started to give serious consideration to this unexpected dilemma.  Based on the evidence of that report and, as a quick glance at the recommendations on the next three papers confirmed, the rest of the proposals for discussion at next week’s meeting, it was clear that something needed to be done, and that something was definitely not sign off the papers for distribution.  Before she could decide what that ‘something’ might be however, the phone rang and, much to her relief, it was Osgood.

 

“What do you mean? That you’re glad it’s me…” Osgood leaned forward and removed a pillow from behind her back, eying it suspiciously.  “Who else were you expecting?”  There were no obvious lumps in the pillow, but that didn’t mean she was going to risk lying on it when it clearly was determined to be uncomfortable.

 

“I wasn’t expecting anyone other than you.”  A decade ago, Kate might have met Osgood’s grump with a defensive push back of her own, but then a decade ago, they’d only been together for a couple of years and were still discovering each other's nuances and quirks.  “But with our luck the Tower Ops Room would have called.”

 

“Oh…”  Osgood abandoned the suspect pillow and adjusted her glasses, feeling awkward that she’d made Kate explain herself.  “I’m sorry…”

 

“Don’t be…”  Kate hadn’t minded the question and hadn’t taken it to heart, recognising what was really going on.  “You’re allowed to be grumpy Os…” she reminded her lover gently, not liking the fact that once again one of them was in London and the other in Geneva, although if she was honest, she was more used to being the one in Geneva.

 

“But not at you.”  The irony was not lost on Osgood that she was being grumpy about being grumpy.

 

“Of course you can be grumpy at me!”  Kate leaned forwards and picked up her tea mug again, wondering if Os had made herself a cup in her room.  “You’ve had to sit through hours of Oversight Committee and spend another night in bloody Geneva because of me…”

 

“I don’t mind…” And she didn’t, not really.  “...but I’d prefer to be at home tonight…” And tomorrow night.  She did not want to be in a hotel in Geneva tomorrow night - for one thing, she’d not brought her hot water bottle.

 

“Come home tomorrow.”

 

“If they’re satisfied…” sighed Osgood, feeling a yawn coming.  It was hard to tell with the Oversight Committee, how much longer they’d want to question her about the last 12 months of decisions and events that had involved Kate.  Normally, Osgood wouldn’t mind spending hours and days discussing scientific findings and being able to explain to others how brilliant her lover was, how lucky the planet was to have Kate Lethbridge-Stewart leading the people that kept it all together.  Osgood was under no illusion about how limited the contribution was that Central Command made to the planet’s on-going survival, it was just regrettable that Central Command wasn’t equally aware.

 

“Come home Os,” encouraged Kate, a number of ideas suddenly coming together and fitting like jigsaw pieces.  “Get the afternoon flight and come home.  Forget about the Committee, it really doesn’t matter if they don’t like what I’m doing.”  Kate knew that on one level she should be setting a better example and at least make some vague attempt at looking like she took the UNIT performance appraisal system seriously.  But she genuinely didn’t give a damn about what the pen pushers in Geneva worried about - the worst they could do was fire her.  Unfortunately, what the pedantic pen pushers that might want to fire her had not yet worked out was that firing her involved a bureaucratic process that existed, was executable...but was so unlikely to actually result in her being dismissed that it was idiotic to even try.  In short, the pen-pushers were in something of a pickle that was entirely of their own making.

 

“It’s ok Kate…”  Osgood’s yawn had gone elsewhere, but unfortunately it had been replaced by rapidly arriving sleepiness.  “It’s important, your review…”  Osgood didn’t know what would happen if something went wrong with Kate’s review, but she didn’t like the idea, or the probable consequences.  “Might fire you…”  What had already been a trying day for a number of reasons, most starting with UNIT bureaucracy, had continued with the committee member who’d not been able to grasp the idea of time being relative which Osgood had found particularly unsettling, and then been topped off by her own biological processes and the belated realisation that she’d forgotten it had been a leap year when she’d been packing her suitcase.  It was now, in the final moments of the day, not being helped by her lover’s apparent near reckless disregard for her own employment.  “They were being very rude…”

 

“Then let them.”

 

“But…”

 

“Come home on the afternoon flight Os…” repeated Kate, knowing that if she didn’t manage to persuade Osgood to come home, she’d go to Geneva to get her.  She was done playing by the ‘rules’ that others had written, she’d played by them for quite long enough.  It was time to go back to playing by the rules that had got UNIT this far, got the planet this far in the last few years...it was time for her to go back to playing by the her rule, the rule that ‘Science Leads’.  “Don’t let anyone scare you with threats about firing either of us.”

 

“Kate…”

 

“Appendix 6, Schedule 3 of the Regulations Os.  Remember, you’re a Greyhound...”

 

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?” Os knew she was back to being grumpy, but she was tired, her stomach hurt, she couldn’t decide if she was hot or cold and she wanted to be in her own bed, with her hot water bottle and Kate, in person.  “Talking riddles isn’t the same as a hot water bottle.”

 

“I know…” Kate knew not to pick up on the fact that Osgood would, on any other day, be the one reminding Kate about the Regulations and what it meant with regard to their position within UNIT.  Instead, she did the only other thing she could.  “Try to sleep Os… and if you can’t sleep, think about the chocolate cake you want me to make.”

 

“Tob’lone Cheesecake…” mumbled Osgood promptly, already shifting around so she was lying down, her mobile held to her ear, her words almost swallowed by a yawn.  “Will bring the tob’lone…”

 

“Toblerone Cheesecake it is,” agreed Kate, smiling as she listened to her lover settling down and attempting to get comfortable in a strange bed when she was feeling so grotty.  “Bring enough for two?”

 

“Only wan’ one…” Osgood remembered to take her glasses off just in time, otherwise she’d have probably fallen asleep with the frame digging into her temple.  “‘N I’ll share with you…”

 

“Thank you, but I think Max would like one for Jess…”

 

“Jess…”  Kate listened as Osgood shifted around in the bed, pushing and pulling at pillows until she’d got everything in a vague approximation of comfortable, muttering at the pillows as she moved.  “...she got the grumps too?”

 

“Yes, she’s got the grumps too.”

 

As Kate listened to Osgood finally falling asleep, the open phone line forgotten about, she reached for her Blackberry and sent a couple of emails.  She’d not been joking when she encouraged Osgood to abandon the Committee and come home, and nor was she joking when she’d been dismissive of the threats that Osgood had picked up on from the Committee about trying perhaps to undermine her. 

 

The only way she or any ‘Greyhound’ could be forced to vacate their position was if they died, which wasn’t on her to do list.  If UNIT wanted to get rid of her, they could fire her but she could appeal, only her appeal wasn’t lodged with an Employment Tribunal.  Instead, under Appendix 6 of Schedule 3 of the Regulations that UNIT operated in accordance with stipulated that any ‘Greyhound’ could appeal against dismissal, and that appeal would be heard by a panel comprising the Senior Alien Ambassador, the Chief Soldier and the President-Elect of Earth, with a majority vote needed.

 

Even if they couldn’t get hold of the Doctor in time, she wasn’t that concerned: Win Bambera hated the pen pushers even more than she did and wouldn’t waste any time waiting for a Committee to be formed to tell Kate if she wasn’t up to standard, and as for the Senior Alien Ambassador…. Now he’d mastered the rules, Tronkie was convinced he’d beat her at Bridge one day and until that happened, knowing Tronkie, he wouldn’t agree to her or Osgood going anywhere, unless it was perhaps to visit shoe sale with him.

 

And until that happened, she’d make Toblerone Cheesecake.

 


	4. Chapter 4

The fact that she was checking her work emails on her Blackberry while she waited for the invariably delayed 06:34 to London Bridge, could have depressed Fran.  It certainly was depressing the people stood near her who were doing exactly the same thing as they collectively waited for the train that might or might not arrive.  Instead though, she found herself skimming the emails that had trickled or, as was more usually the case, poured in overnight from around the World, wondering what chaos or adventure the day would bring...and that was before she even started thinking about who or what might drop into the diary from the rest of the Universe: in fact, their contribution to the day’s disorder and chaos would almost certainly be negligible compared to what would originate from a rather more Earth-based location in London, EC3.  

 

Sure enough, sitting innocently in her inbox were three emails that ensured the day was going to be an adventure for some, a disaster for others and for Fran?  A logistical challenge that she would rise to and be rewarded with a ringside seat.  As she squared her shoulders and positioned her elbows ready to ensure she not only got onto the finally arriving train but also had somewhere to sit, Fran had the same two thoughts she had every morning, the thought that made her look forward to the day and be very, very glad she got to read her emails at oh-six-thirty-something in the morning.

 

Thank heavens there was one but only one Kate Stewart, for UNIT wouldn’t have survived without her but nor would the Civil Service and the Universe have survived if there were two of them.  But it would be entertaining to watch….

 

As the train pulled away from the platform, only three carriages shorter and nine minutes later than timetabled, Fran shifted in her seat and, taking care to ensure her Blackberry screen was angled such that it wasn’t reflected in the window so others could see, she investigated fresh adventure the day was going to bring….

  
  


_ FROM: Stewart, Kate _ _   
_ _ TO: Waincroft, Fran _

_ SUBJECT: Weds - Change of Plan _

_ SENT: 22:23 [GMT +1 (BST)] _

 

_ F, _

 

_ Change of plan for the day please, hope it’s not too horrific to organise? _

 

 

  * __All the usual suspects to an 11am management meeting; McGillop can stand in for Osgood since she’s in Geneva.  Don’t think anyone else has wandered off?  No complaints, apologies, whining or excuses.  And no agenda.  Think that will keep them on their toes? [Don’t panic, I’m not setting fire to the place, just the board papers which I haven’t signed.  No need for coffee and biscuits, I won’t be keeping them long.  Feel free to invite the Ravens if you think that will improve attendance: they’re allowed elevenses.]__


  * _Osgood’s coming back on the afternoon flight - could you sort the tickets etc? WB’s secretary can probably help that end.  Upgrade to 1st, not on expenses… yell if I need to give you a credit card.  Not sure about Geneva, but change of plans Need to Know at Tower please._


  * _FYEO (until after the 11am meeting) - I’m going to test our Gatekeeper Response, so could you please make sure the HO credential is in order and my diary’s got nothing awkward in it in the afternoon?  [I’ll give you 3 guesses who’s going to be the ‘target’, and be disappointed if you need more than 1]_


  * _Re: 3 - I’m going to call off Gatekeeper once I have the ‘target’ so could you have Jenkins follow/meet with a comfortable car please to take us home._



 

 

_ Will be in early, _

 

_ Thanks, _

 

_ KLS _

  
  


_ FROM: Stewart, Kate _

_ TO: Bambera, Gen. W _ _   
_ _ CC: Waincroft, Fran _

_ SUBJECT: Tail Wagging _

_ SENT: 22:27 [GMT +1 (BST)] _

 

_ Win, _

 

_ Just thought I’d warn you, I’ve decided it’s time to stop this ridiculousness that’s been going on of late.  To coin a phrase, the tail is wagging the dog, and this Greyhound’s had enough. _

 

_ I’ve advised Osgood to return to London on the afternoon flight irrespective of whether the Committee feel they’re finished with her or not.    Fran’s going to sort the logistics this end but I’ve suggested to her that Henri might be able to help at your end?  [This is where you remind me this is the week he’s on honeymoon, isn’t it?] _

 

_ I’ll be reminding my lot of a few things at a meeting at 11, and will be reinforcing some of my points with some protocol reviews and exercises, starting with a 6 hour notice Gatekeeper Response exercise.  So probably best to call me on my mobile if you want to talk to me. _

 

_ Science Leads, _

 

_ Kate _

  
  


_ FROM: Bambera, Gen. W _

_ TO: Stewart, Kate _ _   
_ _ CC: Waincroft, Fran; Mescurs, Henri _

_ SUBJECT: Re: Tail Wagging _

_ SENT: 23:34 [CET] _

 

_ Kate, _

 

_ About bloody time! _

 

_ 6 hours notice?  Admire your generosity… hope you’re not getting soft in your ‘old’ age?! _

 

_ I look forward to the fall out here - will make sure Osgood gets away from the Committee in time for her flight.   And the International Red Cross thanks you for the positive impact you’re going to have on the swear box donations. _

 

_ WB _

 

_ P.S. Remind me to call you at the weekend to make Christmas plans. _

_ P.P.S. Henri’s honeymoon is next week.  Permission to share Fran? _

 


	5. Chapter 5

Rounding the corner, Max was rather glad he wasn’t actually whistling when he came face to face with his CO.

 

“Colonel.”  Years of military discipline meant he stepped to the side of the corridor and eased into an ‘at attention’ stance in one single, smooth movement that not only adhered to conventions but also ensured he didn’t spill any coffee.

 

“Max…” A vague wave of the Colonel’s hand was correctly interpreted as permission to stand at ease as, much to Max’s surprise, it was apparent she wanted to stop and chat.  “Aren’t you off duty?”

 

“Yes Ma’am.”  Max had always found Colonel Walsh a fairly straightforward officer to work for - she was as fair, reasonable and as unreceptive to suggestions from junior officers who opened their mouths at the wrong moment as Max had ever served with, a quality which caused his fellow Troop Commanders more trouble than it did him.  What she wasn’t known for however, was short-term forgetfulness or small-talk, which meant whatever she was about to say, probably wasn’t particularly good.

 

“Consider yourself unofficially on duty.”  The Colonel glanced at the cardboard tray of coffees he was holding, presuming they were the reason why he was here, in this part of the Tower on his day off.

 

“Ma’am?”  Max was confused - what exactly did ‘unofficially on duty’ mean?  What exactly was he supposed to do?

 

“Greyhound One…” began the Colonel, only to stop talking, look both ways up and down the corridor before stepping closer to Max and talking quickly in a hoarse whisper.  “Your mother’s pulled the rug out from under lots of people.  What for I don’t yet know, but stick to her please.”

 

“You want me to spy on Greyhound One?” Max looked at the Colonel in shock, not caring that he neither sounded respectful or was making any attempt to moderate his expression which probably could be captioned ‘have you lost your mind?’.  “On my mother?” he added, to make sure that he hadn’t in some way misunderstood, or missed a quick organisation restructure 

 

“God no!”  Horrified, it took Walsh a moment to realise how and why he’d come to that conclusion.  “The opposite.”  The Colonel took a deep breath and tried to order her thoughts into something that she could succinctly summarise based on what had just happened in the 17 minute meeting she and the other senior heads of department within the Tower had been summoned to at, by UNIT’s standards, a moment’s notice.  “Look Max…” she paused again as they both listened to the sound of approaching footsteps, only to hear them stop.  Instinctively, both soldiers’ shoulders tensed as they waited, holding their breath to see what would happen next.  When they heard the sound of the beeps the security system made as someone let themselves into one of the offices off the corridor they both relaxed, a fraction.  “I trust your mother, I have no reason that I know of to not trust our teams, and I trust you.  But whatever the reason that’s made your mother do this, I’m in support of it.”  Walsh looked pointedly at Max until she was extra certain she had his attention, before adding.  "But not knowing the reason makes my gut itch.  And roll.”

 

Gut instinct.  Max could accept that.  It was gut instinct that saw him move some of his father’s letters from his book locker to his bedside drawer at boarding school the afternoon before the water pipes burst and flooded the classrooms on the ground floor, where his book locker was.  “What about Troop? Carter’s in Command today.”

 

“Is that coffee for her?”  If Max noticed that she’d not answered his question, he valued his rank too much to point it out.

 

“Yes…” Max glanced at the cardboard tray he was holding that contained three of the four not-cooling down cups of coffee that he’d bought from the coffee shop across the road from the side entrance to the Tower.  “And biscotti.”  He wasn’t sure why he said that, but based on the Colonel’s reaction it was clearly the right thing to say.

 

“Then carry on.”  She stepped back so he could step away from the wall, their conversation clearly almost over.  “Deliver your coffees, make a minute or two’s small talk…” Walsh looked at her watch, then at Max and smiled the smile he recognised as her ‘love it when a plan comes together’ smile.  “Three minutes to outer office, two minutes engagement with Mrs Waincroft...that puts you in Greyhound One’s office in about 6 minutes.  It will take me 4 minutes to return to the Operations Room.” She waited to see if he was going to make the connection.

 

“Does this rug pull require a Raffles Drill Colonel?”  He’d made the connection.

 

“Yes Captain.  Try not to be in the wrong place when it starts?”  Walsh winked as she turned on her heel and set off down the corridor at a steady pace that was fast enough to be almost a run, but slow enough to not make others panic.  “After all, it is your day off!”

 

* * *

  
  


“Skinny Mocha Latte?”

 

“Not on my birth certificate,” quipped Fran, looking up from the pad that, to Max, looked covered in doodles but to Fran, was a clearly set out to-do list she was steadily working her way through. Whereas once she might have had to consider whether she had to make notes in a cypher (not difficult to do once you knew that was the way things had to be), now shorthand served to baffle the majority of casual glancers.  “But if it’s for me, I’ll pretend it’s a nickname.”  She smiled at Max, genuinely relieved to see the coffee even if his unscheduled appearance was one of the many things she hadn’t been expecting in an already unexpected day.

 

“And if it’s got an extra shot in it?” he joked, passing her the anonymous looking travel mug that was actually at the very cutting edge of thermally insulated materials science and meant that, although the milky chocolatey coffee confection that he was reliably informed was her favourite had been made over half an hour ago, it was still steaming gently.

 

“She’s in danger of having me fight her for it,” said a new voice, distracting them both.

 

“My money’s on you Fran,” said Max as he walked over to Kate and kissed her on the cheek.  “Cappuccino, extra shot, chocolate dusting on the top.”  He held out another travel mug for her to take, earning him a kiss on the cheek in thanks as she did, although ever observant, she had already noticed the paper bag he was holding underneath the cardboard tray.

 

“Are those biscotti?”

 

“Yes, from across the road…” Mindful of what Colonel Walsh had said, not to mention the fact that he had actually wanted to try to talk to his Mum for a minute if she had the time, Max nodded his head in the direction of the coffee table and chairs where they’d talked yesterday.  “I thought I’d try one…” he added, hoping she’d work out from his fidgeting that it would be much easier to give her the biscotti if he could use the table.  “If you’ve got a minute?”

 

“Of course!”  Stepping back into her office, Kate looked past Max at Fran to check that there wasn’t anything her PA wanted her for immediately.

 

“Your diary’s clear for the rest of the day….”

 

“But I thought I had a catch up with…” Kate gestured imploringly at the ceiling with her glasses as she tried to remember who it was she was supposed to be having a ‘mentoring’ catch up with at 11.30.

 

“Cancelled…” Fran decided it probably wasn’t a good idea to let Max know the name Kate was trying to remember was his girlfriend’s boss.  “As have the rest of your meetings for today…” Fran glanced at her computer screen where another wave of meeting reschedule requests had just appeared.  “It’s as if someone’s just scared the whatsits out of the department leads,” she joked, looking back at Kate who was making a curious noise that was somewhere between a groan and a chuckle. “And they’re in turn proving that a good scare slips downhill fast.”

 

“In that case…” Kate stepped to the side so that Max could head on into her office, “it appears we have a couple of minutes.”

 

“Thanks…” Slightly confused at Kate appearing to restrict him to only a couple of minutes despite what Fran had just said, Max glanced back at Fran, something which wasn’t missed by Kate.

 

“Oh for heavens’ sake!  Get in here before you get shut out there when Colonel Walsh calls Raffles in the next 90 seconds.”  And, turning on her heel, Kate set off for the coffee table and armchair - Max could dither in the doorway if he wanted to, but she was getting comfortable.  “Sorry Fran!” she called as an afterthought, knowing that the next few minutes were going to be tedious in the extreme for her PA.

 

“You forgot that she’s always two steps ahead of the rest of us,” observed Fran, taking off her cardigan and hanging it on the back of her chair, pleased that she’d decided to wear a sleeveless dress underneath it today.  “Didn’t you?” she asked, looking back at Max as she picked up her coffee again and took a sip.  “Mmm, perfect.  Thank you - tell her this is payment enough will you?”

 

“I…” Momentarily stunned, Max blinked sharply when he felt a scrunched up piece of paper hit him on the side of the head, a none-to-subtle reminder from his mother that he was currently holding her biscotti hostage.  “Should have known better,” he agreed, flashing a grin at Fran and heading into Kate’s office.

 

“Naturally.”  Kate sipped her coffee and leaned back in the armchair.  “About what?”

 

“About you knowing that Colonel Walsh would head straight to Ops and start a Raffles Drill.”

 

“I’d be more concerned if she didn’t,” agreed Kate, knowing that after the short shrift she’d given the department heads just now, if the Colonel had done anything other than start with a Raffles Drill Kate would be in need of a new Colonel before bedtime.  “Shut the door please?” At her request, Max did as asked, although he wasn’t sure why since it would be automatically shut when the lockdown started.  “It always feel fairer on Fran.  Now…” Kate took another sip from her coffee and crossed her right leg over her left knee, ostensibly looking like she was completely relaxed (which she was) and without any worry or care (which she clearly wasn’t as what she’d done was not so much throw out the rule book as rip its petrol marinaded pages to bits and toss into a flame thrower). “You’re here, off duty, with coffee and biscotti less than a minute before the Raffles Drill.  One of those is a coincidence.”  And, being her son, she didn’t need to spell out how she felt about coincidences.

 

“Raffles Drill Ma’am.”  Gordy never called her ‘Ma’am’, and Max only did it when she wasn’t being his mother and, in that moment although she looked and sounded like his Mum, he was acutely conscious he was being put under the microscope by Greyhound One which, as Colonel Walsh’s peers had already discovered this morning, wasn’t a comfortable place to be if your conscience wasn’t anything other than spotlessly clear.

 

“Thought as much.”  Max couldn’t tell anyone how she changed, but change she had and in that split second Greyhound One was gone, and his Mum was back.  “You know better than I do what’s happening now…” Kate nodded in the direction of one of the Crown Jewels display cabinets, anticipating his next question.  “Watch.”  She stood up as Max turned around to see which one she was looking at, having learned to ignore the opulent display as a rule.  He did and, while he couldn’t quite put his finger on it, something definitely changed while he was looking at it.  “The polarisation filter changes in the glass of that cabinet when Raffles is called.”  She walked over the the cabinet that was displaying the Imperial State Crown. “See?”

 

“It’s…flatter.” Max thought about what he used the polarising filter on his camera for, remembering how it had worked really well at showing all the extra textures and colours in some of the pictures he took.  He looked back at Kate in surprise - he was a Troop Commander and didn’t know this.

 

“Our secret.”  Kate winked at him as she spoke, reminding him that he was definitely talking to his Mum right now.  “Although you should have worked it out given what the drill is…”

 

“Raffles…” He thought about what he knew by ‘Raffles’.  “Singapore hotel…” no, that didn’t feel right.  “Detective stories, wait…” that wasn’t quite right either, but it was nearer.  “Gramps loved them, Raffles… gentleman jewel thief.  Cricketer…” Max’s smile grew to a grin as he remembered spending a whole term at school devouring the stories about the aristocratic cricketer who was a remarkably proficient and daring cat burglar whose taste ran to sparkling jewels by evening and winter’s day.  “Watch the jewels!” 

 

“Quite literally,” confirmed Kate, heading back to the armchair and her coffee.  “Although I’m sure there’s a few jokes about Greyhound One being a bit precious?”

 

“Random gamble actually,” admitted Max following her over to the coffee table, looking forward to drinking his coffee and trying one of these biscotti Osgood had made him buy for Kate.  “Your average squaddie doesn’t read E W Hornung.”  He sat down on the sofa, and pushed the paper bag of biscotti in his mother’s direction.  “What happens now?”

 

“You should be telling me that,” observed Kate as she reached for the bag and tore the paper open, eager to see what sorts of biscotti he’d selected.  “You have done a Drill or two haven’t you?”

 

“Several.  But I don’t mean out there,” he jerked his head in the direction of the door.  He knew that, assuming they were now about 5 minutes into the Drill the three lowest levels of the Tower, which included the Black Archive entrance and the floors that contained Greyhound One’s office and a few other top priority spaces, would be secured by Troop and effectively isolated from the rest of UNIT both in the Tower and worldwide.  While the rest of the Tower facility was being evacuated, searched and a register completed under the guise of a fire alarm, a more thorough search of the secured floors was completed by Troop using all available terrestrial and alien scanning technologies.  His mother’s request that he shut her office door suddenly made sense when he remembered that, as part of the protocol, Fran’s identity would be have to be confirmed by four sets of scans (retinal, fingerprint, voice and energy) and a molecular ID from a blood test sample.  The tolerances for a ‘pass’ were small, and each diagnostic had to be passed in order to be cleared.  It was not a small undertaking, but thanks to some very impressive scanners and a lot of training, Troop were proud of the fact that they could scan and confirm ‘clean’ personnel in less than 90 seconds once they were located.  “What do you do in here?”

 

“Have a biscotti and chat to you,” shrugged Kate, selecting a rather generously dark-chocolate coated one that she knew contained big chunks of macadamia nut and dried mango in it and dipped it into her coffee.  “And wait for Colonel Walsh to confirm whether or not everyone is as they should be.”  For that was the purpose of the Raffles Drill, to secure confirmation that anyone who had access to the UNIT facility was exactly what they purported to be, whether it be human or alien.  The Drill was ostensibly built around the apparent presumption that Greyhound One was not compromised, although both Max and Kate knew that it would detect if there was a problem with Greyhound One, and the consequences of that discovery would not be pleasant.

 

“And if they weren’t?”  Again, Max knew from a Troop Commander’s perspective what would happen next, and it wasn’t something he let himself think about while he was off duty and visiting his Mum.  For one thing, he was realising quite how difficult he found it to appear relaxed when his continued existence and well being were in the hands of others that, for once, weren’t under his command.

 

“Osgood assures me the neurotoxin is fully reversible, but I’d prefer not to find out.”

 

“Oh.”  Startled into silence by the calmness of his Mum’s voice, Max automatically took a sip of his cappuccino with an extra shot, only to be surprised by its taste.  “That’s not bad…” he declared, looking with barely concealed surprise at the cup he was holding.

 

“The neurotoxin or the coffee?” joked Kate, chuckling when she saw his disgruntled look making it clear what he thought of her sense of humour just then.  “What have you got?” 

 

“Same as you.”  Max took another sip, self consciously licking his top lip afterwards to make sure he didn’t have a milk moustache.  “The fancy coffee that works for you…” he began, studying the biscotti, trying to work out which one she’d had based on what was left of the assortment he’d bought.  “Was probably going to be drinkable,” he conceded, deciding she’d gone for one of the dark chocolate coated ones, prompting him to try the one thickly coated in white chocolate.

 

“How was Jess?” asked Kate pointedly, deciding to change the subject to what they’d been talking about yesterday and, if she was a betting woman, the odds-on reason why he was in the Tower on his day off.

 

“Pleased to see me,” blushed Max, deciding he must have dunked his biscuit for long enough and, taking care not to drip coffee, bite into the biscotti and crunched through the rich biscuit that seemed to be flavoured with cranberry and more white chocolate.  “But I think the hot chocolate I’d brought for her was the more welcome visitor.”

 

“Cream and marshmallows?” guessed Kate, shaking her head in amusement - like father like son it seemed, in more ways than one.

 

“With chocolate and cinnamon sprinkles, and some chocolate coated ginger biscuits she likes.”  Max pulled out a piece of paper from his trouser pocket that Kate recognised as being covered in her handwriting and was therefore most likely to be the list of ideas she’d given him yesterday.  “I brought the coffee for you at the same time.”

 

“From the shop across the road?” guessed Kate, smiling as she realised how this jigsaw came together.  “How’s Os?”

 

“Worried about you.” Max hadn’t meant to say that, but, watching Kate he realised that he’d not quite got it right.  “No, more worried for you, and not in the usual Os fussing way.”  There was no point denying that he’d exchanged text messages and a quick call with Osgood this morning - that he knew what coffee to get Kate and that it came with a generous heap of biscotti that she liked was confirmation of Osgood’s input.

 

“Ah.” Kate leaned back in her chair, her coffee mug cradled in her hands so that the steam danced in her breath.

 

“Mum?”

 

“Yes Max?”

 

“What’s going on?”


	6. Chapter 6

“...how do you explain that, Ms Osgood?”

 

“With charts.”  Osgood adjusted her glasses and glanced from the waffling Committee member who still didn’t understand to the row of clocks that silently ticked their way through the hours of the day confirming that it was just after 11am in London.  “And it’s Osgood,” she added for the seventh time that morning, finding it strange that he was unable to accommodate her request that the rest of UNIT seemed to manage quite well.  “Just Osgood.”

 

“That is not an answer.”  The vein in his forehead was beginning to swell which, thought Osgood, probably wasn’t a good development.  Still, at least he hadn’t called her ‘Ms’.

 

“You asked me how I would explain.  My methodology would involve charts.”  She straightened her bow-tie as she looked at the rest of the members of the Committee, unclear why they were insisting on asking her these questions, especially when yesterday’s sessions had made it obvious that they were in no position to understand her answers.  “As well as photographs and the results from various scientific experiments and analyses conducted by myself and the other scientific advisors.”  Realising she was perhaps sounding obstructive and grumpy, Osgood tried to remember to smile when she’d finished answering.  Unfortunately, that had the opposite effect.

 

“You find this amusing Miss Osgood?”  Osgood sighed when the second voice joined in, and took a few seconds to concentrate on keeping her breathing calm, not sure if what she’d felt was her lungs seizing as a precursor to an asthma attack or whether she’d just sighed more deeply than she’d realised.  Deciding there wasn’t a need for her inhaler just yet, Osgood turned and looked at the Committee Member who had yesterday demonstrated an alarming distrust of science and this morning had  further shown he had an inability to grasp the notion that time could be relative.  What was an added insult, as far as Osgood was concerned, was that he wore a bow tie that was very grey and decidedly not cool.

 

“No.”  She took another calming breath, during which time she heard the door to the committee room behind her open and close, suggesting there was someone else now in the room with them.  “But if you would like an explanation of how those events happened, that will require me to use charts.”  She heard the quiet squeak of shoes as whoever had joined them walked across the polished marble floor of the committee room they were in, as clearly their latest arrival felt they were entitled to have a seat at the horseshoe shaped table that her inquisitors were sat around.  “And it’s Osgood. _Just_ Osgood.”  Osgood glanced again at the clocks on the wall and wondered how McGillop was coping deputising for her at the Tower.

 

“This really is highly irregular,” huffed bulging forehead vein, looking around for allies on his side of the table in an attempt to conceal his delight at what he felt was a job well done.

 

“Yes, I quite agree Claude.”  General Bambera’s voice surprised Osgood before she remembered the late arrival’s footsteps.  Win had often complained that the rubberised soles of her uniform shoes squeaked horribly on the highly polished floors of the UNIT building but, as Flo and Kate had often pointed out to her, usually when they’d just slipped on a wet patch of floor, they did provide excellent traction.  “Inhaler Osgood,” prompted Win, hearing the scientist’s wheeze.

 

In pin drop silence, the room seemed to freeze as everyone waited for Osgood to use her inhaler - in reality, only Win was waiting for Osgood to use her inhaler; everyone else was, for one reason or another and with varying degrees of curiosity and nervous terror, waiting to see why the General was exercising her right to ‘drop in’ to this Committee’s meeting rather than rely on her deputy.  

 

“Better?” asked Win kindly, having continued walking around the room whilst Osgood used her inhaler so that she was now visible to Osgood, and also no longer quite so easily visible to all of the Committee members, stood as she was between depressingly grey bow tie’s side of the horseshoe table and the wall with the clocks on.

 

“Yes, thank you General.”  Osgood put her recapped inhaler back in her trouser pocket and adjusted her glasses, not quite sure who was going to talk next, but confident it wasn’t going to be her.

 

“Can I continue General?”

 

“Yes, of course.”  Win smiled tightly at Claude, who was sat to her right, on the far left hand side of the Committee as far as Osgood was concerned.

 

“Bon.  Well…” he puffed out his cheeks, causing his face to go red again, once more highlighting the raised vein in his forehead.  “So Ms Osgood, since you refuse to…”

 

“I’m sorry Claude…” Still smiling tightly, Win leaned forwards, resting her hands on the back of the chair that was being sat in by the one person on the Committee who, now that Osgood thought about it, hadn’t said anything yet.  In fact, thinking a bit more about it, she didn’t actually know anything about them other than they were military, presumably Swedish from the flag on her sleeve and must be quite high ranking in Win’s organisation.  While that in and of itself wasn’t all that unusual, this soldier had made notes and not spoken which in Osgood’s experience, was often the opposite to what soldiers usually did.  Analysis completed, Osgood adjusted her glasses as she tuned back into what Win was saying  “...but I’d like to ask something first.”  Win tilted her head in his direction, ostensibly asking his permission to cut in but even Claude recognised that he couldn’t object to her interruption.  As much as he might have wished otherwise, he could only yield.

 

“Of course General…”

 

“Osgood?”

 

“Yes General?”  She was fairly certain that the Swedish soldier probably ranked Colonel had smirked when the General had addressed her as just Osgood.

 

“What was the topic under discussion when I entered, broad topic I mean?”  Win didn’t want Osgood to answer too literally and thus end up in a discussion about explanation methodologies.

 

“Walthamstow.”

 

“Walthamstow, on the Victoria Line?”  It was a minor annoyance to Win that the first connection she could come up with was that it was a terminus of the Victoria Line on the London Underground, which only made it more frustrating when she couldn’t then remember anything else.  It was years since she’d lived in London, and yet now all she could do was picture the London Underground map, with the bright blue of the Victoria line running from Walthamstow at the top of the map down the page to Brixton at the bottom, next to all the Tootings and Claphams that littered that end of the Northern Line.

 

“Yes, but…” Osgood straightened her bow tie while she tried to think what the quickest way was to trigger the correct memory for the General.  “Red telephone boxes?”

 

“Ah, the explosions!”  Memory triggered, Win was immediately reminded of the succession of explosions that had occurred across London a few months earlier.  “There were nine of them in total?”

 

“Yes, the last one in Covent Garden.”

 

“But Walthamstow was the only one with the...what did you call them in the report?”

 

“Marauding telephone boxes.”  Osgood saw Win nod, confirming that she’d pinpointed the right bit of that particular adventure.  “Technically they were a by-product of the explosion.”  She adjusted her glasses, not quite sure why Win was bringing up this particular aspect but happy to continue with her explanation.  “And it was Dr Stewart who decided they were marauding.”

 

“What would you have said they were?” asked Win, her voice light as she gave in to her curiosity and hoped Osgood realised this - there was no agenda behind her question, just a desire to know what Osgood’s impression of the advancing telephone boxes had been.

 

“Aside from noisy?”  Osgood considered this for a moment, having not intended her observation that ‘marauding’ was Kate’s description to be an opportunity for her to come up with her own, separate assessment.  “Rampaging?  They certainly made a mess. And were looking for something.”  She might have said ‘charging’ but that always made her think of Tennyson’s Light Brigade and there were no horses involved, nor did she really want to think about UNIT Troops forging on to the ‘valley of death’.

 

“Thank you.”  Win looked back to Claude.  “You can continue,” she instructed, clearly intending to remain leaning on the back of her subordinate’s chair while he did so.

 

“Yes, well…” Struggling to try and regain his hectoring tone, Claude pointedly shuffled his notes while he tried to work out why the General was here when she shouldn’t have been.  It was quite ruining his plan.  “Ms Osgood…”

 

“I’m sorry Claude…” Win momentarily let go of her subordinate’s seat back as she interrupted the increasingly flushed pompous man, the General’s expression realised Osgood suddenly, made her look exactly like Kate did when she was enjoying herself just a little bit too much in a meeting.  “Final question Osgood?”

 

“Of course General.”  Osgood waited patiently for Win’s question, not at all sure what was going on, especially in light of Kate’s insistence last night that she should catch the afternoon flight back to London and abandon the Committee, but since she trusted Kate and Win too, she was prepared to help them with whatever they were involved in in any way she could.  Although, now she thought about it, she’d appreciate it if they could break for lunch soon.  Her Blackberry and phone, which had both been vibrating intermittently through the course of the morning as she been texted or emailed had both been vibrating non-stop for the last minute or so.  Aside from the fact that it was starting to be quite uncomfortable with them both in her trouser pockets, it also suggested that someone or, more likely, lots of someones were trying to get hold of her.  

 

Seeing that Win was in no particular rush to continue with her question, Osgood risked another glance at the line of clocks on the wall which told her it was 11.27 in London.  Given Kate’s preference for meetings to be short and sharp, as well as the sudden non-stop vibrating of her phone and Blackberry, Os was fairly confident the two events were connected.  Returning her focus to Win, who was seemingly staring into space while she ordered her thoughts, Osgood tried to work out what might be going on in London that had troubled McGillop, only to notice that the Swedish Colonel had just moved a piece of paper on the table in front of her.  Paying closer attention to where Win was actually looking, Osgood realised that she was actually reading some notes that the Colonel had made, seemingly for Win to read, which suggested this interruption wasn’t quite as spontaneous as the General was appearing to suggest.  Intrigued, Osgood focussed on Win, curious as to what was going on.

 

“Osgood?” asked Win finally, after a full minute had gone by and she’d evidently caught up on all her subordinate’s notes.

 

“Yes?”  Osgood’s Blackberry and phone had stopped vibrating which ordinarily would have been a relief given how distracting they were, but was now making her feel uneasy.

 

“Why haven’t you told this bunch of idiots to go to hell yet?”

 

“I…”  

 

* * *

 

“Identity confirmed.”  Captain Carter smiled at Fran who was already pulling her cardigan back on, a neat sticking plaster covering where they’d taken the blood sample from her elbow.  “Thank you Mrs Waincroft.”

 

“It’s fine.”  As he stepped back from her desk, Fran was already looking past him to Colonel Walsh.  “Colonel?”

 

“Hmm?”  The Colonel looked up from her tablet screen.  “97.5%.”

 

“Confirmed or assessed?”

 

“Both.”  The Colonel passed the tablet to Fran and turned to Carter who completed the same scanning process on her that he’d just finished on Fran although, unlike Fran, the blood sample was taken from the Colonel’s earlobe.

 

There was a long, pregnant silence as they waited for the tell-tale bleeps from the Captain’s sensors.

 

“Identity confirmed.”  Carter showed his screen to the Colonel like he had done for all the other tests.

 

“That makes us 99% confirmed, and 99% assessed,” explained Colonel Walsh, accepting the tablet back from Fran.  At this stage, 99% was as good as they could be, since the final test was Greyhound One herself.

 

“The daycode is…” Fran paused and worked it out again, just to make double certain she hadn’t made a mistake.  She hadn’t.  “Pattern,” because it was Wednesday; “Castle,” because it was May even if it felt like October at times; “Geranium,” because it was the 31st.

 

“Pattern, Castle, Geranium,” repeated Walsh, making sure she had it correct and trying not to smile: Greyhound One’s personal codes were always very clearly Greyhound One’s and made no attempt to mimic other standardised code sequences, but that was her prerogative, and the Colonel wholeheartedly supported her in exercising it, as she knew the General did too, even if they caused challenges when Greyhound One went overseas.  “Thank you Mrs Waincroft.”

 

Walking up to the now shut door to Kate’s office, Colonel Walsh paused to check that Carter and his men were in position, before banging on the door.

 

“Dr Stewart?”

 

“Yes?”  Putting down her coffee mug, Kate turned and called out in the direction of her office door that, even if she hadn’t asked Max to close it, would have been automatically shut when the Raffles Drill started.

 

“Colonel Walsh Ma’am.”

 

“Excellent time Colonel…” As she spoke, Kate watched with interest as Max went to the display cabinet on the far side of the office which, in addition to being the home of a rather delicate tiara, also had the concealed Weapons Safe in its base that few knew about.  Unsurprised that Captain Stewart was one of the people aware of its existence and how to open it, Kate was, as always, fascinated to see Max shift from being her son to her troop commander in a split second. “What’s the situation?”

 

“99s across the board Ma’am,” came the answering shout as, moving silently across her office, Max gestured to Kate that he wanted her to move from the armchair she was currently sitting in to the sofa, and the end farthest from her desk at that.  Baffled, but trusting him completely, Kate changed seats as Max moved to the side of the door, his back to the wall and a pistol in his hand.  If nothing else, it gave her a different set of jeweled coronets to look at.

 

“Excellent.”  Kate, loathe to waste good coffee, picked up her mug again while she waited for the all important daycode that only a small number of people could provide to the Colonel.

 

“Daycode is Pattern Castle Geranium” shouted Walsh, with a final glance at the two soldiers who had her ‘six’, checking they were ready.

 

“Daycode confirmed: Pattern Castle Geranium.”

 

In her father’s day, Kate knew that there would have then been a further song and dance routine involving the simultaneous turning of keys on both sides of the door to disengage the security locks that were designed to protect the various secrets and safeguards that the office of Greyhound One held, but fortunately, in the era of voice activated mobile phones and curtains (so she was told), it was now done on her voice print.  Therefore, it was only a matter of seconds before the door was open and the Colonel was standing one step inside the door, holding the tablet.

 

“No shot Ma’am.” Eye trained through his gun’s sight, Captain Carter was surprised when he discovered he couldn’t see Greyhound One at all - that wasn’t part of the protocol.

 

“No shot Ma’am,” came the rather more panicked shout of Lieutenant Tomkor who could see bits of what might be Greyhound One but he couldn’t really tell as the angle was very tight and Colonel Walsh was in the way.  

 

“I have the shot.”  Extending his arm, the rest of him fully shielded by the reinforced wall surrounding the doorframe, Max released the safety on his pistol and calmly aimed at the target.

 

* * *

 

Before Osgood could work out how to answer General Bambera’s ridiculous question, the door behind her opened, disrupting her already scattered train of thought.  Seeing Win wave whoever it was into the room, Osgood resisted the urge to turn around to see who the latest intruder was and began instead to try to work out what might be a possible answer to the question.  Why hadn’t she told this ‘bunch of idiots’ to go to hell?

 

Pedantically, she reminded herself that technically they were not idiots - certainly she knew that the Committee Member representing the Tokyo UNIT base had a PhD from Harvard if she remembered their online profile correctly.  Admittedly, you could have an incredibly animated discussion at one of the UNIT scientist pub meets as to whether psychology was or wasn’t a ‘science’ (in Osgood’s experience, it rather depended whether anyone had remembered to invite the biologists), and Osgood personally wasn’t clear what relevance a PhD in the ‘Cognitive Behaviour Analysis of the HIgh Performing Workplace’ had to what was supposed to be a technical scientific review of the last twelve months… she was quite certain that her colleague was probably expertly placed to infer whether Kate had been calm when trying to limit the damage the marauding telephone boxes had caused, but understanding the risks associated with using phosphate flares on them?  That required a fairly comprehensive understanding of inorganic chemistry, all of which meant, decided Osgood, that a better question might be why hadn’t she told this ‘bunch of intelligent but not scientifically qualified people’ to go to hell?

 

Adjusting her glasses, Osgood automatically noted that the latest intruder was one of Win’s soldiers, a Corporal from South Africa judging by the uniform, and he’d evidently brought a note and a radio with him.  Since Win’s attention was still held by this interruption, Osgood returned to her pondering, shifting in her increasingly uncomfortable seat as she reminded herself that she’d never told anyone to ‘go to hell’ - for one thing, most would assume it was an abstract concept but actually, according to her late ‘sister’, it was a planet populated with some very hospitable… Osgood frowned as she tried to remember what the indigenous species were, but in the end decided it wasn’t necessary, with the point being that she’d never wish anyone to either an abstract concept or somewhere where they might impose on others.  Therefore, the question she needed to answer was more accurately framed as ‘Why hadn’t she advised this bunch of intelligent but not scientifically qualified people that her presence here was no longer positively contributing to the operation of UNIT?’

 

Satisfied that she now had the question, Osgood felt she could probably formulate an answer, once Win was paying attention to the meeting again.  Looking over at the General, Osgood was surprised to see that Win was clipping the radio to her belt, before nodding a dismissal to the Corporal.  Did this mean that she could have some lunch before she answered the question?

 

“Sorry Osgood,” Win smiled at her friend who shrugged amiably before repositioning her already tidy bow tie in what Win was certain would be interpreted by some of the Committee as a pointed comment about their somewhat scruffy appearance, but Win knew was nothing more than one of Osgood’s habits.  “But I think we should take a break.”  Win turned and looked sharply at Claude, as if daring him to challenge her authority.

 

“Of course General.”  Pulling her papers and tablet into a neat and tidy pile, Osgood missed the remainder of the wordless interchange between her friend and her interrogators as she concentrated on packing her rucksack so it was comfortable.  By the time she’d finished, the stand-off had clearly been resolved, as she was nearly deafened by the sound of chairs being pushed back on the polished floor.

* * *

 

“Captain Carter?”

 

“Yes Colonel?”  Josh was confused - there wasn’t anything in their operating manual for this situation, and what the hell was Max doing?  It was his day off…

 

“Stand your teams down Captain.”  Walsh spoke clearly and calmly, her gaze never wavering from that of Greyhound One, who appeared to be watching this little drama play out in front of her in much the same way the Colonel imagined Kate had probably watched her children’s school events: polite, unwavering interest that gave nothing away.  It was certainly how Walsh had survived all those Nativity Plays and cricket matches.

 

“But Colonel...” Josh was trying to work out what he did next, given that Greyhound One was not yet confirmed, nor was Max.  Actually, Max wasn’t even on the list of people to be confirmed...

 

“NOW Captain.”  Walsh wasn’t sure about Greyhound One, but she was running out of patience.  “Fall back to the corridor.”  She admired his dedication to protocol, something she’d usually be praising him for given his normal haphazard regard for it, but right now, she wanted to see the more usual Carter, the one who seemed to favour improvising.

 

“I’d like to hear confirmation from Greyhound One please Ma’am.”  He wasn’t sure why he’d asked for that, or what difference it would make if this all went wrong given that they’d yet to confirm the status of Greyhound One, but somehow, it felt like the right thing to do.  

 

“Captain Carter?” Kate sipped her coffee while she waited for him to respond, eying up her next biscotti thoughtfully.  Was that the milk chocolate one with hazelnuts?

 

“Yes Ma’am.”  Hearing Kate’s voice, Carter felt his heart rate slow a touch: something was still sounding normal.

 

“It’s fine, but thank you for your concern.”

 

“But…”

 

“It’s ok Josh…” There was something in her tone that made him believe it really was her, believe that in this crazy situation he found himself in, Greyhound One was genuinely ok. It was frustrating that he still couldn’t see her - tactically, he would have preferred it if she’d moved somewhere that either he or Tomkor could see, but instinctively, he knew that if he asked her to do that, she would decline, and with some pithy almost tart remark.  And somehow, that was what told him more than anything else that his gut had to be right: that was Kate Stewart, Greyhound One wasn’t compromised and whatever it was that was going on, him and Tomkor falling back was the right thing to be doing.

 

“Yes Ma’am.   Tomkor?”

 

“Yes Sir?”

 

“Lower your weapon.”  Confused, but understanding that there were moments when it was good to remember he only had two pips on his shoulder compared to the Captain’s three and the Colonel’s Crown and pip, Tomkor methodically engaged his weapon’s safety and lowered it as Carter did the same.

 

“Colonel?”

 

“Yes Captain?”

 

“Weapons lowered, we’re relocating to new positions in the outer corridor.  We will remain on Comms.”

 

“Thank you Captain.”  Relieved, if only because that meant she could probably lower her hands soon, Walsh listened keenly for the sounds of Tomkor and Carter retreating.  “Mrs Waincroft?” she called, knowing Fran was, whilst not quite as unflappable as Kate Stewart, probably still sat at her desk doing paperwork of some sort.

 

“Yes Colonel?”  Fran closed the filing cabinet she’d been sorting and walked into the office, seemingly oblivious to the military standoff that was still not quite over.

 

“Have they relocated?”  Fran looked past the Colonel at the outer office, watching as the door onto the corridor closed behind Tomkor, Carter already visible through the glazed pane.

 

“Yes Colonel.”

 

“Thanks Max.”  Colonel Walsh prudently waited until she heard the click of the safety before lowering her hands and turning to look at him.

 

“Sorry…” Max reached behind him and tucked the pistol between his belt and jeans’ waistband before running his hand over his head, trying to work out who he needed to apologise to first.  “Colonel.”

 

“No apology necessary.”

 

“Could someone please enlighten me?”  Kate reached for the biscotti she’d identified and introduced it into her cappuccino, content to hold the rich crunchy biscuit in her coffee while she waited for someone to explain.

 

“I took advantage of meeting Max by chance on my way back to Ops after the meeting Ma’am.”

 

“And invited him to take you hostage on my behalf?”  Kate judged her biscotti was probably appropriately marinaded by now and was about to bite into it before adding, “oh sit down, both of you. And Fran?”

 

“Yes Ma’am?”

 

“Am I able to provide refreshment?”  Kate knew she couldn’t provide an outside line yet, not until she confirmed the end of the Raffles Drill, and while there was the Tantalus on the sideboard, she was fairly certain the Colonel would be a little insulted if Kate suggested they hit the whiskey before noon.

 

“We’re out of biscuits…” The words were out of Fran’s mouth at the same moment that the biscotti went into Kate’s.  “But I’ll get you a coffee Colonel?”  Fran tried to remember how she took her coffee.  “White with one sugar?”

 

“Thank you.”  As much as she wanted to get this Raffles Drill concluded, like Carter, Colonel Walsh was drawing comfort from Greyhound One’s completely… normal behaviour as far as Greyhound One was concerned.  It was something that the Colonel found herself unable to describe but it was immediately recognisable, almost impossible to recreate (although the Zygons were impressive, but even they had to admit that there was something that ultimately they never quite managed to get right which, in its own weird way, was quite a compliment) and more reassuring than any scan confirmation.  No one except Kate Stewart could react to her own son holding her Military Commander at gunpoint in the middle of a security lockdown with concern for whether she could offer coffee.  “Two sugars today I think.”

 

“I’ll share my biscotti… have you had one yet Fran?” asked Kate suddenly, realising that Max had come into her office before he’d opened the biscotti.  “Try the dark chocolate one…”

 

“Thank you.”  Knowing it was quicker to accept the offer than debate with Kate, Fran carefully extracted a dark chocolate dipped biscotti from the selection on the coffee table.  “Thank you Max,” she added, remembering who’d brought them in.  “I’ll be back with your coffee Colonel.”  As Fran left, Kate reminded Max and Walsh that she was still looking forward to an explanation.

 

“Can I say it was an abundance of caution?” asked the Colonel, glancing at Max to see if he had any bright ideas as to how they explained themselves.  Judging by his blank expression, he was evidently content to remember that it was traditional for junior officers to remain silent while senior officers were having a conversation in their earshot.

 

“You can, but if you want me to believe you I’d like to hear a bit more.”  Kate sipped her coffee again as she considered the Colonel who was still looking rather tenser than Kate was expecting.  “Oh relax Maria, and spit it out.”  Kate smiled at the woman who was, after a few false steps, becoming a remarkably astute navigator of the particular challenges being the Commander in London posed, only some of which were alien.  “Max will tell you, I’m not cross.”

 

“She’s not.”  Max looked from his CO to his Mother and back to his CO, shrugging when she shot him a pointed look, as if to ask her if she’d ignore an instruction from her mother to start talking.  “Cross.  Generally or with you specifically… she’d not be sharing her biscotti if she was cross.”  He looked at Kate as he continued to talk, deciding that the Colonel might find it easier to explain her side of things if he got the ball rolling.  “I met the Colonel on my way here, after dropping off Jess’ hot chocolate.  She suggested that something was…off, but she didn’t know what.”

 

“It was your snap meeting Ma’am.”

 

“Go on…”

 

“I’m not aware of any intelligence to suggest an actual Gatekeeper incident in progress…” Max sat up straighter - no wonder the Colonel was feeling things were a bit ‘off’ if she was being surprised by an already on-going Gatekeeper.  Kate noticed, and also suspected that Maria was hoping she’d jump in with an explanation, but instead she remained quiet, waiting for Maria to finish.  “So as I left the meeting, I formed three theories: that it is real and I was out of the loop, that it was a drill and I was out of the loop or that it was cover for something else.”  She cleared her throat and swallowed, not liking that she was having to voice such thoughts aloud but understanding why Kate would want her to.  “And if that was the case, the best case scenario was that I was out of the loop, the worst case was Greyhound One was compromised and somewhere in the middle was the thought that I was compromised and didn’t know it.”

 

“Which explains the Raffles Call,” agreed Kate, not disagreeing with her assessment.  “As that would eliminate one of your theories.”

 

“Yes Ma’am.”

 

“What about your other theories?” As she spoke, Kate gestured to Fran that she could bring in the Colonel’s coffee.

 

“Honestly Ma’am?”  Kate’s smirk and nod gave Maria permission to continue with absolute frankness.  “No idea what’s going on but I’m guessing I’m about to be brought into the loop?”

 

“Yes.  And you might want a third sugar.”

 

“Hell of a way to find out I’ve passed Ma’am.”

 

“Flying colours.  Is Max spending his day off with me?”  Kate was astute enough to not ask any more questions about what exactly Max’s orders were.

 

“Yes Mum.”  He still didn’t quite know what was going on, but if they were part way through an active Gatekeeper that the Colonel hadn’t known about he wasn’t abandoning his post now.

 

“On one condition.”  Kate took another generous bite of well marinaded biscotti and chewed thoughtfully, watching the exchange of glances between the two soldiers.

 

“Yes Ma’am?”

 

“Get a proper holster for that pistol.  You are an officer, not a gangster.”

 

“Yes Mum.”  He’d meant to say Ma’am, but it came out wrong, or rather, realised Max watching the smirk appear on both his mother’s and CO’s faces, he’d actually got it right.  That was definitely his mother scolding him.

 

“Right, now we’re clear on that…” Kate was about to start catching them both up on what she’d concluded late last night and what plans she’d set in motion and when she noticed something, which made her chuckle.

 

“Ma’am?”  Concerned, Colonel and Captain glanced at each other, each hoping the other knew what was making Greyhound One laugh.

 

“Look at the Crown Max.”

 

Obediently, Max turned his head and looked at the Imperial State Crown again.  It was even duller.

 

“The filter?” He looked back at Kate, who nodded.  “Raffles Ma’am.  You’ve not completed Raffles.”

 

“Not that I mind particularly,” Kate put her coffee down on the table and balanced the biscotti across the cup’s rim, “but I can think of two people in Geneva who are probably getting quite keen to shout at me.”

 

“Os wouldn’t shout…” mumbled Max as he watched the Colonel quickly start the identification process for Greyhound One authentication and the final step that had to be completed in order for Raffles to be completed and their reconnection with the outside world.  “Would she?”


	7. Chapter 7

“I’m not going to shout.”

 

“I am.”

 

“I’m not.”  Osgood stopped her pacing long enough to take a pull on her inhaler, but she was pacing up and down the committee room again before she’d finished pocketing it.

 

“I would.”  Winifred Bambera tracked Osgood’s progress with her eyes, not sure whether she was amused or worried by Osgood’s pacing - she didn’t think she’d ever seen Osgood pace before.

 

“I am not you,” observed Osgood calmly, turning around and starting to pace back down the side of the room to where Win was leaning on the back of a chair.

 

“No,” agreed Win, considering her friend’s almost marching gait and watching the next ‘about turn’.  “With marching like that, you’d never have been commissioned.”

 

“What?”  Surprised, and not immediately following where Win’s thoughts had taken her, Osgood stopped her pacing.  “Oh…” Half smiling, and adjusting her glasses, Osgood pulled out the nearest chair and sat down, taking her friend’s point.  “Sorry.”

 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you nervous like this.”  Win didn’t particularly want to sit down, but knew that as long as she was not sat down, she’d be appearing to loom over Osgood, which wasn’t going to be very encouraging to exchanging confidences.  “Everything ok?”

 

“Yes.”  Osgood straightened the abandoned pad of paper so it was in line with the edge of the table.  She didn’t need to look up at Win to know she hadn’t sounded very convincing.  “No.”  She looked up at Win.  “What’s going on?”

 

“In general?”

 

“Specifically.  You and Kate, well, Kate.”  Osgood looked searchingly at Win who, not that she’d ever admit it, felt rather exposed, like she’d left a piece of her uniform in her quarters when she’d been a cadet officer on parade.  “But you’re not stopping her, which means you agree.”  She adjusted her glasses again as she thought about something else that was odd.  “And you were rude, well, not rude, but not as polite as you normally try to be, with Claude Tredoment.”

 

“I was curt…” corrected Win, impressed but not surprised at what Osgood had picked up on.

 

“What’s she done Win?” asked Osgood again, starting to feel a mix of emotions that she normally preferred to keep away from UNIT, but this morning was all turning out to be rather more trying than she usually found these things, in part not helped by Win being kind.  Kind was going to make her cry at this rate.

 

“Why don’t you ask her?” suggested Win gently, picking up Osgood’s phone which she’d left sitting on the table near where Win had sat down and passed it across to the scientist who could see the screen flashing to indicate an incoming call.  There was nothing to indicate that it was Kate calling, but evidently whatever was going on meant that Win was expecting it to be.

 

“Hello?  Osgood speaking.”

 

“Hi.”  Feeling self-conscious suddenly, Kate rubbed the back of her neck and looked at Max for inspiration as to what to say next.

 

“Osgood?  It’s Max.  You’re on speaker.”  Having moved the conversation on a step, Max shot his mother a look that was very clearly a look intended for his mother, and not Greyhound One, given that it was loosely translated as ‘stop being an idiot’.

 

“Oh.”  Not expecting Max to be on the call too, or now able to work out who else was on the call, Osgood reached to check her bowtie hadn’t decided to undo itself in the last few minutes.  “Should I put you on speaker?  There’s only me and General Bambera here…” And, now she paid attention to Win, she appeared to be getting an update from someone on her own mobile phone.

 

“She’s on the phone with Maria Walsh, who’s also with us,” explained Kate, watching the Colonel who had excused herself to the far side of Kate’s office to use the desk phone and complete her various updates and so forth before rejoining Kate on her call to Geneva if that was what Kate wished.  “So for now it’s just us…” Kate sipped her coffee and lapsed into silence.

 

“Os?”

 

“Yes Max?”

 

“Thanks for the coffee shop advice…” Max looked at his mother with a slightly accusatory expression.  “Mum’s enjoying hers and is on her third biscotti.”

 

“Third?”

 

“Second Os, he’s teasing.”  It was Kate’s turn to shoot a look at Max before she snatched up the phone handset, temporarily shutting off the speakerphone.  “It’s me…” She didn’t need to add that they were no longer on speaker - not only had Osgood no doubt heard the change in sound on the call, but she’d be able to tell from how Kate’s voice had changed.  “I’m sorry.”

 

“It’s not your fault Claude’s not scientific.”

 

“Claude’s an idiot.”

 

“Those are not mutually exclusive states,” pointed out Osgood, starting to smile in spite of everything.  This sort of teasing talk with Kate was familiar and comforting.  Not as comforting as being back at home, with a hot water bottle would be, or getting a comprehensive explanation as to what exactly was going on, but it was a good start.  “But it’s not your fault he’s difficult to explain science to.”

 

“Henri’s got your plane ticket, for the four-something flight…”  Osgood looked up at the wall of clocks again, seeing that they’d barely have started again after the lunch break before she’d have to leave for the airport, which meant she’d definitely not have finished answering all their questions.  “And stop thinking about answering their questions…” added Kate, knowing exactly where her girlfriend’s thoughts were headed.  “If it was a proper review they’d have completed their questions yesterday.  But I don’t think they’ll be restarting after lunch.  And I’m still sorry, but thanks for not holding me accountable for Claude.”

 

“Why are you sorry?”  Osgood leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes for a moment, wondering if she could convince herself she wasn’t feeling a headache forming right behind her eyes.

 

“Because you’re there, feeling rubbish and I’m here…”

 

“And?”  Osgood was too perceptive to believe that Kate had said everything she wanted to say.

 

“And you know me too well.”

 

“Not possible.”  Osgood opened her eyes and absently rubbed her stomach, deciding that something to eat probably wasn’t going to help her feel better, nor if she was honest, was flying.  But unless the Doctor dropped by, it was about her only option for getting back to London, and that was something that would make her feel better.  “Would your not answering my question have anything to do with McGillop panicking?”

 

“McGillop panics?”  She’d not meant to evade Osgood’s question again, but Kate was momentarily distracted by the idea of McGillop panicking - she was struggling to picture it and hadn’t been conscious of him behaving oddly as he’d left the meeting earlier.

 

“In a McGillop sort of way he does.”

 

“I hadn’t noticed, and he did very well in the meeting, so please tell him he’s doing fine?”  Kate saw that Maria Walsh had finished her phone call, which suggested she’d be rejoining them in a moment.  “I did try to, but, well…”

 

“He was being McGillop?” guessed Osgood, able to picture him trying to escape Kate’s office at speed the moment the meeting was finished.

 

“Yes.”  Kate saw Maria returning to her coffee cup, indicating that it was time to return to business, so to speak.  “I’m putting you on speaker Os…well, technically Max is…” she amended, passing the telephone to Max who dutifully worked out how to replace the handset and turn on the speakerphone function without cutting Osgood off.

 

“Should I put us on speaker here?” Osgood turned her head and checked that Win was the only other person in the room with her.

 

“Please…” Kate gestured to Colonel Walsh to sit down - she knew better than to try and tell Maria Walsh to relax.

 

“Kate?  Win here…” Everyone, at both ends of the conversation, winced when they heard the chair squeak as Win pulled it out from under the table, evidently sitting down near to where Osgood had put down her mobile phone.

 

“Good afternoon General,” acknowledged Kate, her words formal but her tone was light and matched the smile she had on her face which prompted Max to groan.  Fortunately he managed to catch himself so it wasn’t actually heard by his mother, although Colonel Walsh did hear, and shot him a sidelong glance as she tried to work out if he was thinking what she was thinking, which was that Kate Stewart looked like a totally relaxed woman in danger of enjoying herself.  “I’m here with Maria Walsh and Max, who has a day off.”

 

“Morning Colonel.”  For a few minutes more at least, it would be afternoon in Geneva and morning at the Tower.  “Hello Max.  Good day off so far?”

 

“Uh…”  Confused by her tone, which sounded like her ‘Aunt Win’ voice, Max wasn’t sure how to respond, since Greyhound One’s office was normally a ‘General Bambera’ zone, only to catch a glimpse of the Brigadier’s collection of spirits decanters that Kate kept on the sideboard, which reminded him of Gramps’ advice when he’d been first starting out - ‘if in doubt, go with rank’.  It had worked then, he had a feeling it would still work now. “Yes General, thank you.”

 

“Good.”

 

There was a long pause during which Win remembered that this was technically Greyhound One’s sit rep call and Kate wondered if the General was about to start asking Max what his plans were for the rest of the day.  Unsurprisingly, it was Osgood who eventually broke the silent stand off. 

 

“Colonel?”  

 

“Yes?”  Surprised at being called on by Osgood, Maria Walsh nevertheless leaned forwards so she was able to talk into the speakerphone’s microphone so she would hopefully be heard reasonably clearly in Geneva.

 

“Can you start with the timeline please?”

 

“Of course.”  She looked at Kate quickly, seeing the nod of agreement that the timeline from the morning was a good place to start and pulled a small notebook from the pocket of her uniform trousers.  Turning to the page where she’d made her brief notes which she’d already referenced during her phone call with General Bambera, she opened her mouth but then closed it again and looked from Kate to Max.

 

“Consider Max read in Maria,” advised Kate quietly, correctly understanding what was causing her hesitation.

 

“Thought so.”  Maria Walsh cleared her throat, partly because she was feeling rather dry mouthed but also to give General Bambera the opportunity to disagree with Captain Stewart’s inclusion in this briefing.  There was no such interjection.  “As you are already aware Ma’am, Greyhound One had a top rank reports meeting at 1100 hours.  This meeting appeared on the schedules at 0711, rated priority blue.”  Max blinked and gulped when he heard that - priority blue was the highest level priority that UNIT had that was exclusively terrestrial and not imminently explosive.  “Everyone was required to attend aside from yourself Ma’am.  Dr McGillop attended as your delegate.”  Which, realised Osgood, having not been included in the priority blue flash at 0811 Geneva time since Fran would have already substituted McGillop in for her before sending the flash, explained in part why she’d had such a hyperactive Blackberry and phone throughout the morning.  As a rule, the scientists  who worked at the Tower didn’t cope terribly well with priority blue.  “Ahead of 1100, I instructed a full review of overnight intelligence briefs foreign, domestic and alien and increased our alert level to Bravo three.”

 

“Bravo Three Colonel?”  Win wasn’t disagreeing with Maria at this point, but wanted a little more detail to understand her reasoning.  “Not Alpha?”  UNIT had a rather complex readiness state system that enabled them to reflect threat levels based on terrestrial intelligence relevant to the individual base’s location as well as a global terrestrial threat assessment for the whole of UNIT and extra-terrestrial threat on top of that.  Bravo states indicated the potential involvement of an extra-terrestrial threat element, whereas Alpha were terrestrial only.  In both states, the higher the number, the more serious and likely an incident.  A Bravo state in response to a Priority Blue was somewhat contradictory...

 

“Umm…” It was unusual for Maria Walsh to hesitate, and she wasn’t hesitant about her decision to shift the Tower into Bravo states, but she wasn’t entirely sure how Kate would take her explanation.

 

“Carry on Maria, I won’t be insulted.”

 

“Yes Ma’am.”  Relieved, Maria took a steadying breath and resumed her briefing, grateful that Kate Stewart was apparently telepathic and had understood her hesitancy.  “There was nothing in the intelligence reports to suggest a Bravo status, but there was also nothing in the intelligence reports or forthcoming engagements register to suggest a Priority Blue flash from Greyhound One at oh-dark-thirty.”  Instinctively, she used the slang for something happening in the middle of the night, but everyone on the call was familiar with it so there was no further explanation required.  “So I erred on the side of caution, Ma’am.”

 

“Excellent call Maria, I’d have done the same thing.”  General Bambera’s agreement with her actions nearly saw the Colonel slump in relief although she managed to catch herself before she actually sagged.  That was the thing with the General, something she had in common with Greyhound One now Maria thought about it - you never quite knew whether they were agreeing or disagreeing with you until they’d finished speaking as even their displeasure was nicely expressed.

 

“Thank you Ma’am.”  She turned a page in her notebook.  “The 1100 meeting concluded at 1118…”

 

“Who was late?” asked Osgood quietly, knowing someone would have been and hoping it wasn’t McGillop.  Also, and more significantly, it would help her work out what the ‘mood’ was at the Tower right before Kate’s meeting, once she knew who had been late and why.

 

“Anderson.  Something about a virus…”  Kate frowned, knowing it wouldn’t have been a virus that had delayed the Communications Head.  “No, I don’t mean that…” It was funny really, thought Max as he waited for someone to help her out - she was neither stupid nor uninformed, but the whole world of the internet, computers and social media held no appeal to Kate.  She could understand the science, made suitably impressed noises when touring labs and meeting with people who worked with it but neither used any of it or retained information about it except when she absolutely had to.  Outside of UNIT, if it wasn’t to do with Bridge or Gardening (two subjects not particularly compatible with social media) or family, she generally wasn’t interested, although she had mastered text messages...eventually.  She may be in charge of the Tower, able to cope with all manner of alien threats and disasters, but she was still the woman who, just over ten years ago, he’d had to help learn how to take a photograph with her new mobile phone.  And even that hadn’t exactly worked to plan, as she’d ended up recording her foot for posterity rather than something more interesting.

 

“Viral?” Osgood had been skimming through her backlog of emails while she listened to the timeline briefing from Maria and had spotted something that she thought would explain Anderson arriving in a flurry of tablets and smartphones, full of apologies and breathless update.  “Was it the possible Weeping Angels Mannequin Challenge Viral Video?”

 

“That was it…”  Kate wasn’t sure what he’d been talking about when he’d arrived, still wasn’t in fact.  “McGillop seemed quite confident it wasn’t actually Weeping Angels…”  She didn’t need to tell Osgood she had no idea what the rest of those words meant, Osgood would already know.

 

“He’s right.”  Osgood had found the email thread and was skimming the mails quickly, noting the various departments involved and making a mental note to congratulate McGillop and Anderson on getting the right people on it so quickly.  “From our perspective an elaborate hoax.  The creators wanted to get into the Halloween spirit early.”  In fact, it had been a university sports club doing the Mannequin challenge with the help of a particularly gothic cemetery as their location and some friends from the drama department who had apparently over-stocked their grey shades of make-up and props.  The result had been, on first glance, a rather good approximation of what might happen if a group of Weeping Angels had trapped these students in the cemetery but fortunately, UNIT had been able to quickly establish it was artistic rather than alien.  “It’s got over one million views now…sorry Colonel.”  Osgood put down her blackberry and adjusted her glasses when she realised she’d rather hijacked Colonel Walsh’s update.  “You were saying?”

 

“The meeting concluded at 1118 and I was returning to the Ops Room when I met Captain Stewart.”  Maria looked up at Max and pointedly nodded towards the phone, silently ordering him to take over the update, mainly because she didn’t actually know why he was where he had been.

 

“I’d been visiting Jess, uh, Dr Padwinkski in Exo-Bio Four…” Max ran his hand over his head, trying to work out how to tell these four very senior women that he’d had a crash course from his mother in how to be a decent boyfriend when your girlfriend had period-related crankiness which he had been making good use of, before deciding to just carry on and ignore that part of his update.  “And met the Colonel in the corridor when I was on my way to bring coffee to Mum…”

 

“The meeting had left me...unsettled General.”  Maria hoped the General understood what she meant, not sure, despite Kate’s assurance that she wasn’t insultable, how exactly to articulate how she had found the meeting.

 

“What Maria is diplomatically not saying is she left the meeting wondering if she’d done something which meant I’d lost confidence in Troop or her,  whether she’d missed something that I’d spotted but wasn’t telling anyone about or whether I’d just gone rogue,” summarised Kate, appreciating the predicament the other woman was finding herself in.

 

“And have you?” asked Win, amused at Kate’s summary.  “Gone rogue?”

 

“No roguer than usual.”  Pleased to see Maria smile and relax a fraction when she heard the joking tone of their exchange, Kate took over the update and continued in a much more serious tone.  “I’d called the meeting because I did have concerns, about things I was spotting across UNIT in recent weeks that for whatever individual reason, are adding up to something I don’t like.”  Kate rubbed the back of her neck as she took a moment to order her thoughts again before continuing.   “Put bluntly, last night I’d had enough.  For whatever reason, it’s just not good enough in too many departments across UNIT.”

 

“So you read the riot act and yanked the rug out from under everyone,” summarised Win, able to picture all too clearly how the meeting would have gone - it was, after all, what Kate had done time and time again latterly for her when she’d still been full time in Geneva, before Torchwood was destroyed and she’d taken over at the Tower.  ‘Science Leads’ wasn’t just a headline, or a preference for who got the lion’s share of the budget each year, but a philosophy that Kate had tried to get embedded into everything that UNIT did, building on what her father had started.  It meant be curious, be open-minded and explore.  It meant do not shoot first and delay asking questions… it meant everything that Kate hadn’t been seeing happen in the last few weeks from various parts of the Tower, and Geneva.

 

“Yes.”  

 

“Fair enough.”  Win had expected as much, based on their email exchange last night and what she’d realised herself when, prompted by Kate’s decision, she’d spent an hour or so this morning reviewing what was passing across her desk.  After a couple of years of fairly unrelenting focussed threat from the Nestene and Missy, she could understand why they’d collectively started to drift a bit when it had calmed.  She wasn’t surprised that Kate had spotted it before anyone else - that was what made Kate the perfect person to succeed at what she did.  “Colonel, you assigned Captain Stewart to Greyhound One, to act outside of Troop command?”  Win winked at Osgood as she spoke, trying to convey to Osgood that everything really was fine despite how it sounded, wanting to avoid Osgood having an asthma attack if possible.

 

“Yes General.  Gut instinct.  Whatever was bothering Greyhound One bothered me, but without a pinpointed threat I presumed that I had the potential to be the threat.”

 

“Very good.” Win didn’t disagree with anything that Maria Walsh had elected to do so far, but was curious to know what she would have done if she hadn’t met Max in the corridor, but that was a question for Maria when they weren’t on a conference call with Greyhounds One and Two, or Max.  “Carry on.”

 

“1124 hours  I reviewed the latest intelligence and ordered a civilian containment.”  Maria turned the page in her notebook, giving everyone else a moment to translate that piece of UNIT jargon into plain English, the gist of which was ‘rang the Beefeaters’ boss and asked him to temporarily close off the relevant bits of the Tower that were open to the public because UNIT were about to deploy the actual ravens, not the mechatronic ones normally wandering about for the tourists’ selfies,  as additional security’.  “1126 I ordered the ravens deployed and 1127 hours I notified General Bambera in Geneva that I was instigating Raffles.”

 

“I think it’s fair to say General, that I don’t consider on-base Security to be an area of the Tower that is underperforming,” observed Kate dryly, before adding.  “That’s a compliment Maria.”

 

“Thank you Ma’am.”  Not having expected the compliment, she immediately focussed on her notebook while she concentrated on getting over her surprise.

 

“Raffles went well I take it?” asked Win, knowing it was a somewhat rhetorical question as, if the drill had thrown up any significant problems, they would either not be having this phone call because Greyhound One would still be isolated or they’d be having a very different conversation.

 

“Still awaiting the final reports for the upper floors…” Maria picked up the tablet she’d brought in with her which was starting to receive the status reports coming in from the ‘fire evacuation’ of the drill.  “Overall it seems to have gone well.”

 

“Anything to worry about?” asked Kate, realising her glasses were on her desk but not really wanting to go and get them in case that made Maria feel like she had to hand over the tablet - as far as Kate was concerned, that was the last thing she wanted to happen as that would represent exactly the sort of thing she was being irritated by: she wanted people to take ownership of their own roles and responsibilities and do them well, not presume someone else more senior would step in.

 

“Nothing for Greyhound One to worry about Ma’am.”  Maria scanned the initial reports, determined that she wasn’t handing the tablet over to Kate unless she was ordered to - as far as Maria was concerned, Greyhound One should expect others to worry about whether the ravens had deployed within their target time frame or if the evacuation routes and assembly points were properly understood.  “But Personnel and Maintenance have some action points already…” she saw another report had come in and scanned it, smiling unexpectedly.  “And it looks like some expenses claims have already been approved…”

 

“Oh?  Don’t tell me a raven went for a Beefeater again…” groaned Kate, fairly certain she’d been assured by Malcolm that they’d managed to smooth out that particular software glitch - for some reason, when they’d been sent a particular series of instructions, the mechatronic ravens had malfunctioned and started chasing the Beefeaters.  Viewed from the comfort of her office, via the CCTV footage, Kate had found it rather amusing, though of course she’d never admit it to a Yeoman Warder, to give them their proper title.  The actual ravens however, Kate was fairly convinced also shared her amusement.

 

“Not exactly…” Maria tapped on an attachment and was surprised by the photograph she saw.  “Are Beefeater uniforms washable?”

 

“Dry clean only.”  Suddenly the dots connected for Kate.  “Wait, the ravens didn’t…”

 

“Crap all over the Beefeaters?” asked Maria as she held up the tablet with the photograph of a rather well splatted gentlemen in red and gold on screen for Max and Kate to see.  “Rather good aim, considering the lack of targeting mechanism for that...weapons system?” It was testament to how seriously Malcolm took his responsibilities as ‘parent’ of the mechatronic ravens that, not only did they caw and strut in suitably randomised sequences to mimic natural behaviour, but he had also included ‘excretion’ in the latest upgrade, having taken rather personally the suggestion by a small boy that they couldn’t be proper birds as there ‘wasn’t any poo’.  

 

“I trust you’ll include appropriate visual aids in your report Maria?” asked Win, struggling not to laugh in spite of not being able to see the photograph - she could picture it all too easily.

 

“Yes General.” It had no relevance whatsoever to her report, but Maria knew an order when she heard one, and wasn’t going to argue: it was actually quite a refreshing change to report to people who admitted to a sense of humour and were in possession of some personality.

 

“Anything else we need to cover just now?” asked Kate, thinking they’d probably updated Win as much as they could all things considered - it went without saying that the lower floors had come through the Raffles drill without issue, otherwise they’d have been having a rather different conversation.

 

“Nothing from this end…” Win glanced at Osgood to see if there was anything she wanted to mention, but it was clear from Osgood’s shake of her head that she was satisfied with the update.  For now, Maria Walsh had done very well and demonstrated that she knew how to react to Greyhound One being spontaneous and her teams were up to scratch.  Equally, other departments were starting to have their cracks and shortcomings revealed and would, in fairly short order, improve.  “Good luck with the rest of the day’s fallout,” continued Win, knowing that all manner of things were now going to crawl out of the proverbial woodwork as, following Kate’s ‘reading of the riot act’, individual department heads would be giving their teams and processes various shakes and re-evaluating their own performances.  At least, that’s what they should be doing, and anyone who wasn’t would in turn attract attention, probably from Kate.  “I have to say, I wasn’t impressed with how we coped when the notification of London entering Raffles state or deploying Ravens came through here…”

 

“Anything I need to know?” asked Kate, not liking what she thought Win was suggesting.

 

“Nothing specific, but I’ll be reading my own riot acts here over the next couple of days…” 

 

“Let us know if there’s anything we can do to help from here General,” said Kate diplomatically, not surprised by what Win was saying, having a pretty good idea what that ‘help’ was probably going to entail.

 

“Thanks Kate, you’re the first person I’m calling.”  Win glanced at her watch, noting the time.  “If there’s nothing else…”  She had a meeting to get to, that she was actually already late for and, judging by how Osgood was looking, she needed some fresh air and paracetamol before she headed for the airport.

 

“Thank you General.”  Kate heard Win push back her chair and mutter something to Osgood, “and you Colonel.  You’re welcome to stay but I suspect you’re wanted in Ops?”

 

“Thank you Ma’am.”  Standing up, Colonel Walsh came easily to attention before stepping away from the coffee table, taking her mug with her.  Max had also jumped to his feet, not quite sure if he was being dismissed or not.  However, just when he was about to ask Kate what she wanted him to do, he saw her pick up the phone, clearly intending to have a further chat with Os, which made the decision for him - he wouldn’t go to Ops, but he would leave his Mum in peace for a few minutes.  He should be able to keep out of Fran’s way.

 

Closing the door behind him, he decided he could risk letting out a sigh of relief, although what exactly he was relieved about, he wasn’t quite sure.

 

“An eloquent summary Max.”

 

“Colonel!  I...”  Embarrassed that he’d completely forgotten that the Colonel was only a step or two ahead of him, Max wasn’t quite sure what to do or say.

 

“Know exactly how you feel.”  Smiling wryly, Maria gave her mug to Fran with a nod of thanks.  “Still, so far we’ve kept our end up.  Let’s hope it lasts.”

 

And, on that rather cryptic comment, Colonel Walsh set off to return to Ops to see whether Greyhound One’s compliment was deserved, or whether something or someone had blotted her copybook.  She was under no illusion -  she was proud of her team for managing to execute the Raffles Drill without any high profile issues that had come to Greyhound One’s attention, although that was by no means the same as performing to the standard they should be held to.  Still, as she bypassed the lift and started to jog up the stairs, there was no point dwelling on that now Raffles was behind them, the Tower secure and the chain of command uncompromised. Striding into Ops, Colonel Walsh didn’t wait for anyone to notice or acknowledge her arrival.  “Who do we know at Home Office, MPS, UK Border and CAA?”

 

“Ma’am?”  Surprised, the Duty Lieutenant spun around in his chair and looked at her in confused surprise, evidently being of the opinion that a Raffles Drill was more than enough excitement for one day.

 

Sighing, she repeated her question, hoping that it was a simple case of him not hearing her properly the first time, but deep down, she knew it to be more fundamental than that.  Kate Stewart was right, they’d all got too comfortable now they weren’t having to adopt the siege mentality that had seen them survive the wave after wave of Nestene assaults.  But now was not the time for philosophising, instead, it was time for the next challenge…

 

“Listen up!”  The Ops Room went from quiet to soundless as everyone stilled, giving the Colonel their undivided attention.  “We have been tasked for a Gatekeeper Response.  Package to be confirmed.”  She looked around the room, mentally evaluating everyone’s reaction, noting those who looked confused or panicked as well as those who looked too confident.  “Time to intercept is 5 hours, so we really haven’t time to find the phone book...” Or be put on hold, which unsurprisingly, was exactly what happened....

 

Somehow, Maria Walsh didn’t think she’d be getting another compliment from Greyhound One today…..

 


	8. Chapter 8

“How are you feeling?” Now she had her office to herself, Kate wasn’t interested in discussing UNIT business, far more concerned with how her girlfriend was doing.

 

“Grumpy.”  Osgood had picked up her phone and turned off the speaker function, noting as she did so that her battery charge was getting low.  “I don’t know why I’m like this…” Well, not strictly true corrected her inner pedant, she did know why she was like this in the broader sense, since she was a female pre-menopause…

 

“Because you’re not distracted with science.”  Kate however, unlike Osgood’s grumpy inner pedant, knew what she’d meant.  “You’re bored Os…” she added, in case she’d not been sufficiently clear.

 

“How does someone work for us and not accept that Time is a relative concept?” Osgood was aware she was probably sounding whiny, but she was stiff, sore, cold and hot at the same time and generally fed up now she thought about it, not to mention on the wrong side of the continent.

 

“Ask the Americans.”  

 

“You’re going to have to spend a lot of time here, aren’t you?”

 

“Possibly…” Like Osgood, Kate had also picked up on what Win was not yet saying, but it was hardly a surprise - it wouldn’t be the first time Win had asked her to work out what or who was stopping a team of people from performing as they were supposed to.  “Probably, but not for a few weeks at least.”  She leaned back on the sofa and rested her head on the back of the chair.  “Next month’s problem,” she decided, not wanting to start thinking about something she couldn’t yet sort out.  “Have you got to check in a bag?” asked Kate, changing the subject.

 

“No…I’ll pack my rucksack into my suitcase when I leave for the airport.”  That way, she’d just have the single ‘cabin bag’ that her ticket included in the air fare this week.  It was all rather confusing, appearing to change on a whim from trip to trip, but years of practice had made Osgood a neat packer who travelled light.  In fact, Osgood couldn’t actually remember the last time she’d travelled to Geneva with hold luggage.  “I think the last time I had to check in bags was when you lived here…” Chewing her lip, Osgood tried to work out what she might have been bringing with her that stopped her being able to manage with just a cabin bag.  “Yes…” She remembered now, it had been when Kate had persuaded her to bring some clothes with her that she could leave in Geneva so she didn’t always have to travel with extra clothes, especially once the temperatures dropped in winter. 

 

“You brought clothes…” Kate had remembered too - it had been the weekend they’d ‘moved in together’ with Osgood deliberately travelling with extra clothes to leave behind in Kate’s wardrobe in Geneva.  “And took some of mine back,” which Osgood in turn had put away in her wardrobe in her then new London flat, which was now lived in by Max and Gordy.  “You had that sweater, the blue one?”

 

“With the buttons.”  Osgood stood up, deciding that she didn’t want to still be in the Committee Room if Claude and the other committee members returned from lunch early.  “And the holes for your thumbs.”  She picked up her things and headed for the door, planning to go see Henri to collect her plane ticket and, if she was really lucky, he’d be able to find her phone charger while she found something to eat.

 

“I have a confession to make…”

 

“You wore it, when I wasn’t visiting.”  Osgood was now in the corridor, heading for the section of the building that Kate’s office had once been in, where Win’s office still was.

 

“I didn’t think I’d told you?” Kate was certain she’d never said anything to Osgood about ‘borrowing’ the sweater once it had permanently relocated to be a part of Osgood’s Swiss wardrobe.

 

“No, you didn’t.  But I knew…” Osgood nodded in acknowledgment to a couple of scientists she knew as she passed them in the corridor but didn’t stop to make conversation like she might have done on another occasion.  Now she’d given herself permission to agree with Kate’s suggestion that she leave Geneva this afternoon, she found she really had run out of patience with the politics that was invariably associated with a visit to Central Command.  Therefore, not only was she keen to leave and get back to the familiarity of London and the Tower, but she was also considering taking tomorrow off as well… a proper day’s rest before starting again in a fresher mindset might be not such a bad idea…

 

“You never said.”  Kate thought back to those times when she’d finally got back to her apartment after a long day banging her head against a brick wall of bureaucracy, feeling less like a successful scientist and reformer (like her Father and Winifred Bambera thought) and more like a worn out child playing dress up at the grown ups table.  Never one to indulge in self pity for more than a minute, she’d found herself curling up on the sofa, wearing Os’ sweater: the soft wool that wasn’t actually wool of the slightly too large chunky knitted sweater, with the button neck and holes at the wrists you could slip your thumbs through to keep the cuffs over your hands, becoming a substitute for a hug from Os.  

 

“Didn’t need to.”  Osgood negotiated the security lock and continued down the corridor towards Win’s office.  “I liked that you felt you could.  And it wasn’t like I was needing it when you wore it...”

 

“As much as I liked that sweater, I liked you in that sweater even more…” Kate remembered staring out of the window at the snowstorms swirling over the city and lake,worn out by a long day trying to get Claude Tredoment to grasp that she wasn’t against corporate governance and due process (quite the opposite in fact), but she also believed that it was possible to be an organisation that was ‘in control’ while being scientifically curious and militarily cautious.  Curled up in her girlfriend’s sweater, the Winnie-the-Pooh bear Os had given her the day her divorce was finalised in her lap, Kate had tried to break down whatever arguments she’d collided with that day and work out what shots she would fire the next day...

 

That she was in this office, all these years later was testament to her victory in the battle… that he was still pompously lording it over the rest of them by hanging onto his seat on the Oversight Committee suggested the war was not yet over.

 

“I forgot my scarf.”  Osgood felt silly, only realising now that she’d left her scarf behind in London.

 

“At home?”  Kate couldn’t remember seeing the scarf lying around in the kitchen, the hall or their bedroom (three of the more usual places it ended up) but she hadn’t exactly spent much time in the house while Os had been away.

 

“No, in my lab.”  Osgood stopped and parked her suitcase neatly by a picture of the Tardis parked under the Eiffel Tower, giving her the opportunity to switch her phone to her other hand and reposition her glasses and check her bowtie was behaving.  “I’d been wearing it with my lab coat when I was in the Black Archive…”  She paused, remembering leaving the Black Archive wearing it.  “Yes, then when I got to my lab, I checked the weather forecast for Geneva.  It was colder than I’d anticipated, so I went to get my spare duffle coat…”  Fed up with getting caught out by sudden, invariably alien induced meteorological changes, she’d taken to keeping a coat on the hook on back of her lab door.  “And didn’t put my scarf back on.  It should be in my lab.”  Which was better than it being lost somewhere in an airport, but still didn’t really help in the short term.

 

“I’ll go and find it.”  Kate understood the importance of the scarf to her girlfriend and was completely sincere - she wouldn’t ask someone to find it, or just assume that it would be there when Osgood next went to the lab.  If she’d known it hadn’t been with Osgood these past couple of days, she’d have gone and retrieved it sooner.

 

“Thanks.  I’ve got to Win’s office.”

 

“Henri’s honeymoon is next week.”

 

“I know, he’s getting married on Saturday.  I’ve got a card for him and Paul.”  Osgood balanced her rucksack on her suitcase and extracted the card she’d written.  That it was from both her and Kate didn’t need to be said.

 

“Thank you…” Unfortunately, based on the distance her Blackberry had just managed to migrate across the coffee table, it was clear to Kate she was going to have to, at the very least, go and get her reading glasses from her desk.  “My reading glasses on my desk.”  She knew Osgood would understand what she meant.

 

“This battery is nearly dead.  I’m going to see Henri and go to the airport.”

 

“Lunch?” Kate was useless at remembering to eat herself, but hadn’t someone once said love made hypocrites of us all at some point?  She couldn’t remember who it was, and if no one had said it previously, well she, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart would say it now.

 

“Not hungry.  But I’m going to buy some Toblerone…”

 

“I’ll make you a cheesecake tonight,” promised Kate, hearing a knock on her door which was no doubt Fran telling her that she had something hideous brewing in her email .  “Fran’s knocking...”

 

“I’ll text you later.”  They’d never been the sort of couple that struggled to end a phone call and nothing had changed - Osgood ended the call on her mobile, absently noting the battery was down to 7% charge.  Kate meanwhile, put the phone down and, in a single movement grabbed her Blackberry and stood up, calling out to Fran as she headed back to her desk and, most importantly, her reading glasses.

 

“Ma’am?”  Fran appeared in the now open door, Max stood in an almost but not quite hovering position behind her.

 

“Which fire do you want me to deal with first?”

 

“The Home Secretary is on line two…”

 

“What does he want?”  It was unusual for him to call her, favouring the summons and expecting obsequience, which wasn’t in her nature.  “Wait, if he’s on line two, who’s on line one?”

 

“His PA.  Calling for me, Ma’am.”

 

“Problem?” Glasses on, Kate was skimming the subjects of the emails she’d been receiving at a rate of knots ever since the servers had re-established connections after the Raffles  all clear.  Occasionally, she’d open an email and read the first sentence or so, but in the majority of cases, she could get a clear enough picture of what was happening from the subject, and it wasn’t a particularly attractive one.

 

“There won’t be Ma’am,” declared Fran with a confidence she wasn’t yet certain she felt, “but if you could explain to the Home Secretary what Gatekeeper is that would help.”

 

“Line two?” checked Kate, smiling as she spun round in her chair so she could reach her desk phone.

 

“Thank you Ma’am.”

 

“Leave the door open Fran, and yell if you want me to do something…” Kate picked up her phone.  “Stephen…” She wasn’t going to address him by his job title, not if he wasn’t prepared to read the briefs he was sent…  “Eyes giving you grief again or do you just not like my letterhead?”


	9. Chapter 9

“Is it always like this?” asked Max, stepping out of Fran’s way as she headed for the printer on the far side of the office.

 

“No.”  Fran leaned on the copier while she waited for the printing to finish, noticing he had changed from his Star Wars sweatshirt into an open-necked shirt at some point, and the gun was now sitting on his hip in a holster.  “She’s normally got meetings.”  Fran glanced at the open office door, before leaning forwards and, in a semi-conspiratorial tone stage-whispered, “she’s not very good at staying put.”

 

“Does this place have a greenhouse?”

 

“No idea.”  Fran looked at Max in confusion.  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

 

“Let her in a greenhouse and she’ll stay put for hours…”

 

“Do you want me to make your girlfriend a chocolate cake tonight or not?” asked Kate, suddenly appearing in the doorway, looking relaxed and amused.  It was, quite clearly, a ‘Mum’ moment.

 

“Yes please Mum.”  Max rubbed his ear, trying not to catch Fran’s eye, knowing she was probably trying not to laugh at him.

 

“Chocolate cake?” Fran suddenly regretted sending such a big print job to the printer - the twenty five copies she’d asked to be printed hadn’t finished, so she couldn’t use them as an excuse to look away from her boss, who was definitely enjoying herself, despite having spent the last hour dealing with one problem after another.

 

“Toblerone cheesecake.  Easy recipe, reliable.”  Kate pulled her Blackberry out of her suit pocket and held up her reading glasses so she could look through them at the screen before deciding that she didn’t need to look at any of those emails.  “I’m making one tonight for MY girlfriend…” she leaned against the doorframe and pointedly ignored Max.  “And SOMEONE was hoping I’d make another one for HIS girlfriend who’s a bit  _ grumpy _ with him.”

 

“Grumpy with him because he did something stupid grumpy?  Or just regular grumpy?” asked Fran, looking past the surrealness of the conversation she was having with her boss on today of all days and instead allowing herself to feel a small bubble of pride that she’d managed to not only earn the respect and trust of Kate, but to be one of the privileged few who occasionally got to see this side of her and her relationship with Osgood and her family.

 

“Regular grumpy.  Speaking of…” Kate put her Blackberry in one trouser pocket and her glasses in her other pocket, her suit jacket abandoned on the back of her chair, her sleeves haphazardly rolled up just past her elbows.  “I’m going to Os’ lab….is there anywhere you’d recommend I do or don’t wander on the way?”

 

“I’d avoid Personnel,” said Fran promptly, dreading to think what would happen if Kate were to spontaneously drop in to that department after the last hour or so of struggle that she didn’t yet know about.

 

“Oh?”  Unfortunately, Fran had forgotten that telling Kate Stewart not to do something only sparked her curiosity.  “Problem?”

 

“Not anymore,” explained Fran quickly, trying to pick her words with care.  “Accreditations are coming through now, but it was… interesting until about half an hour ago.  But we’re fine now.”  She glanced at the printer’s display screen, relieved that the reason for its sudden stop was a desire for a fresh toner cartridge, rather than a paper jam.  Gesturing to Max to move out of the way of the supplies cupboard in the corner of the room, she headed towards it, hoping they’d been restocked.  “If you want some fresh air, I’m sure the ravens would like to see you.”  It was one of those strange mysteries of the Tower but somehow, the ravens did actually seem to know that Kate was the Boss and if she walked by their aviary they’d show a far politer interest in her than anyone else that visited.  “And Jacobsen in Chem Lab Three has apparently perfected a rather pretty indoor firework…”

 

“Were we trying to perfect pretty indoor fireworks?”  Kate hadn’t remembered authorising that particular project.

 

“No.”  Fran managed to just about keep the swearing internal when she saw they were missing the necessary toner cartridge.  “Bother.”

 

“Problem?”  Concerned, Kate walked over to Fran and inspected the empty shelf with her.  “Let me guess, no toner cartridge.”

 

“No...and I’m halfway through printing out the packs for your briefing.”

 

“Halfway as in they would need to share or halfway as in there’s half a plan?” asked Kate, giving away the fact that her ‘print your own papers’ days predated auto-collate high-output copiers.

 

“One between two.”

 

“Come on Max, we’re going cartridge hunting...I’ve got my Blackberry…” and, not waiting for Max to join her, she set off for her ‘wander’ that would probably see her visit Chem Lab Three to see their accidental fireworks and steer well clear of Personnel.  If it wasn’t raining, she’d also go and say hello to the ravens before finally dropping in on Os’s lab to get her scarf.

 

“Good luck…” As she watched Max stride out to catch up with Kate, Fran realised she had no idea who she was wishing the good luck to…but she was fairly certain it wasn’t Kate Stewart.


	10. Chapter 10

“Did anyone miss me?” asked Kate as she arrived in her outer office about an hour later, carrying a printer toner cartridge and Osgood’s scarf, which looked like it was folded around something but Fran wasn’t quite sure what.  “And here’s your toner cartridge…” Kate held it out for Fran to take, not sure where to put it since Fran’s desk seemed to be covered with all manner of forms and photocards.

 

“Thanks Ma’am.”  Taking the foil wrapped package from her boss, Fran headed for the printer, ripping open the packaging as she walked, impressed that Kate had managed to not only find the right sort of cartridge but get someone else who had spares to hand it over.  Sometimes Fran thought it would be easier to get live ammunition from Troop than it was to get stationary supplies from another department’s stationary cupboard.  “The Home Secretary rang again, and there’s a message from General Bambera.”

 

“Oh?”  Hands shoved in her trouser pockets, Kate was watching with interest as Fran switched over the cartridges, before looking at Max.  “Can you do that?”

 

“No…” Confused, Max tried to work out what she was asking for, and whether he’d just given the wrong answer. 

 

“Me neither.”  Kate looked back at Fran who, cartridge changed over, was now prodding the printer back into life so it would finish her print job for her.

 

“Bit like reloading a field gun I guess,” mused Max, recalling some of the artillery training he’d had when he’d been a Lieutenant.  “Easy when you know how, golden rule don’t drop it?”

 

“Sounds about right,” agreed Fran, looking more closely at what Kate was still holding.  “Do you need some hot water?” she asked, realising that she could see the neck of a hot water bottle sticking out from the bundle of what could only be Osgood’s scarf.

 

“Mmm?” Following Fran’s gaze, Kate looked down at what she was holding and separated the hot water bottle from the scarf, enabling both Max and Fran to see that the hot water bottle was actually in a knitted cover.  “Oh, yes please.  But not now.”  She looked back up at Fran and added rather redundantly, “it’s Osgood’s.”

 

Unfortunately, while Fran might have been able to contain her reaction to that piece of news to a smile, Max couldn’t help himself and laughed, earning him a questioning raised eyebrow from his mother.

 

“The question marks gave it away Mum.”

 

“Ah.”  Satisfied that he was laughing at her expense rather than Osgood’s, Kate looked back at the hot water bottle, seeing the clearly hand-knitted blue cover with its familiar red question marks scattered across it with a fresh pair of eyes.  “My mother-in-law is a knitter.  Took her a while to master the question mark apparently.  What’s that thing she does for you Max?  Every Christmas?”  It was an innocent question, lightly asked but pointedly claiming a point back, leveling the score between them at one-all.

 

“Beanies.”  He looked at Fran while waving his hand over his head to emphasise he was talking about knitted hats not anything filled with dried pulses.  “WIth Star Wars stuff on them.”  He liked Star Wars and he got cold ears, he could cope with his mother’s teasing.  “Last Christmas she gave me a blue one, with the Death Star on it.”

 

“Very impressive.”  It took Max a moment to realise that Fran was being serious and not teasing him.  “I’m a crocheter myself, not much of a knitter.”

 

“Ah, cool.”  That at least was something both Kate and Max could agree on - they were not remotely skilled at wool based crafts.  “Jess does that I think.”  He frowned, trying to work out if he actually meant that.  “Is it with a hook?”

 

“Yes, that’s crochet.  I didn’t realise Dr Padwinkski crocheted.”

 

“Neither did I,” added Kate dryly, enjoying learning new things about her staff.  “Who do you want me to deal with first?” she asked, returning to what was almost certainly the less interesting but potentially more time critical topic of conversation.  “Stephen or Win?”

 

“You don’t need to do anything with the Home Secretary.”  Fran coughed when she saw Kate’s eyebrow raised, realising how her phrasing was perhaps less than ideal.  “He doesn’t actually want to talk to you at the moment, just leave regular apologies…”  He’d actually described them to Fran in an early message as ‘unreserved grovels’ which led her to believe there was something else going on that she was neither going to wonder about or ask for more details.  What she didn’t know…

 

“Ah, yes.  That’s Stephen.”

 

....her boss would tell her about anyway: she knew that look.

 

“Ma’am?”

 

“He was…” Kate cleared her throat and shot Max a look that clearly communicated to him he was not to add any comments.  “...my ex-husband’s best man.”

 

“Ah.”  Fortunately, Fran was saved from having to work out what else she might be expected to say in response to that by her desk phone ringing.  Grateful for the interruption, she glanced at the number on the display.  “It’s Geneva Ma’am,” she added, before picking up the phone.  “Of course General…” she looked up at where Kate had been standing to discover she’d already headed into her office.  “I’ll put you through.”

 

* * *

  
  


“Kate…” Leaning back in her desk chair, Winifred Bambera spun round so she could look out of the window, the lights of Geneva starting to disappear into the intensifying rain.  “Glad I caught you.  Have you done the brief yet?”  If she’d been the finger-crossing sort, her little toes would be crossed…

 

“No…” Kate looked at her watch, “twenty minutes.  Just been admiring Chem’s latest discovery.”

 

“What does it do?”  Win hadn’t planned on getting sidetracked, but she was rather relieved to find out that she had more time than she’d feared.

 

“Nothing useful yet, but we now have a lovely range of indoor fireworks.”

 

“Can’t have too many fireworks…”  

 

“Do I need to start guessing?” asked Kate when it was apparent that Win had ground to a conversational halt and wasn’t going to start again any time soon without some prompting.

 

“What do you know about Botagan Banshees?” asked Win finally, turning back to her desk and looking at the personnel file that was lying across her keyboard.  “Specifically an unregistered female Botagan Banshee who might have been completely missed by us here and is currently due to land at Heathrow later…”

 

“FRAN!”

 

“Yes?”  Fran ran into Kate’s office, Max only half a step behind her - Kate Stewart did not often shout.

 

“Get Maria Walsh up here now.”  Seeing Fran nod and leave, Max following her and prudently shut the door behind both of them.  Alone once more in her office, Kate leaned on the edge of her desk and, pinching the bridge of her nose sighed and said to Win surprisingly calmly.  “Let me guess, she’s on Os’s plane?”

 

“She will be, yes.”  Win reached out and pulled the folder towards her so she could see the photograph that was attached to it, showing the familiar face that she’d said good morning to more often than not.  “They won’t take off for another 45 minutes.”

 

“And you’re not grabbing her at your end because…” Kate shut her eyes as she tried to remember what she knew about Botagan Banshees, only for her eyes to open wide when she remembered.  “Because as long as they’re calm, they’re able to blend in with us and, having melodious voices are often presumed to have Welsh heritage..”

 

“I can’t guarantee she won’t scream,” agreed Win, wondering how she was going to tell Kate quite how spectacularly they’d screwed up somewhere in the depths of Central Command.

 

“So you want to let her fly to London and for me to do Gatekeeper for real,” summarised Kate, not sure if she should laugh or scream.

 

“Yes.”  Win turned back towards the window, not interested in staring at the file any more.  “I’m sorry Kate.”

 

“What else aren’t you telling me?”  Kate walked around her desk, the phone cord stretching but just about long enough to let her get to her desk chair.

 

“She’s called Teresa Dimarones, and works on Main Reception here.”

 

“So when you said you’d completely missed an unregistered Botagan Banshee that you’d like my team to deal with in London, what you really meant was…”

 

“What I really meant was I’ve got bigger problems here with complacency than you’ve got at the Tower, starting with a young lady who knows who all  the Central Command staff are and, if she gets stressed, can scream in the right way to turn aluminium to liquid.”

 

“Flutter.”

 

“Pardon?”

 

“She can scream at the right frequency and create aeroelastic flutter, in lots of materials not just aluminum.”  There was a long pause.  “Sorry,” apologised Kate, all too able to picture what Win’s face was looking like.  “Scientist here, but actually Os could explain it far better.”  Kate took a deep breath and stared at the paperclip that was randomly lying next to her pen in front of her.  “Is there a brief coming from Central Command to help us or do we need to start from scratch?”

 

“My guys are doing as much as the groundwork as we can, and will collect her from you.”

 

“Fine.”  Kate heard the knock at her office door.  “Come in!” she called, remembering just in time to move the phone away from her mouth so Win didn’t get the full impact of her shout.  “Is there anything you want to brief Colonel Walsh on directly?” They were running out of time for small talk.

 

“No.”  Win stood up, feeling frustrated that she couldn’t be doing more, that she had to ask Kate to sort out their mistake, but there was nothing she could do about it now.  “Can I do anything to help this end?  With anything?”

 

“Cross your fingers.”  Kate waved Maria Walsh towards the coffee table, encouraging her to take a seat.  “Oh, and find out if there’s a chance she could recognise Max or Josh Carter.  My instinct is she’d know Josh but not Max.”

 

“Done.”  Win knew Kate had to go, knew they both had things to do but there was one final question she had to ask, one final point she needed to know.  “Kate?”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Are you going to tell Osgood?”

 

* * *

  
  


“...and the wifi password is on the back of the menu.”

 

“Thank you.”  Repositioning her glasses as she nodded and smiled at the professionally perky receptionist-cum-security guard, Osgood put her rucksack down on the small bistro style table she’d been led to and neatly parked her suitcase next to the chair.  Left in peace, not interested in a coffee or warm glass of white wine, she sat down in the chair still clutching the plastic shopping bag that contained an assortment of Toblerones.  She wasn’t used to having this many bits with her by this point, nor was she used to being in this part of the airport.

 

Relinquishing her grip on her shopping, she took a moment to check her bowtie had survived the attentions of the security person, which reminded her… she prodded her tongue against her top teeth carefully, testing it for any especially sensitive or sore parts, relieved when it felt, well for wont of a better thought, ordinarily tongue-like.  It had taken rather more patience than she’d expected to withstand the woefully inadequate security search of her and her possessions without pointing out the various different ways she could have ‘beaten’ their measures if she’d been so inclined.  But common sense, unexpectedly in the form of the mental image of her girlfriend holding a chocolate cake had seen her keep her mouth firmly shut and her opinions to herself, even if her tongue was almost bit in two to achieve it.

 

Reaching into her pocket for her mobile phone, Osgood glanced around the business class lounge, taking in her unexpected surroundings.  She had been commuting between Geneva and London for twelve years and had thought she’d experienced all the permutations she was going to.  She knew how long she had to allow for the brisk walk straight to the Gate from security when she’d leave going through Security and more significantly, leaving Kate until the last possible moment; she knew where the best seats were to be able to see the departure board and, before she’d exchanged her laptop for a tablet, plug in her laptop so the battery would then last for the flight; she knew which chocolate to buy to take back to her lab when she’d been to Geneva for a ‘long weekend’ - it was the one that had its ingredients listed on the back in half a dozen languages rather than the dozen plus that was the ‘airport’ chocolate.  

 

Latterly, since working for UNIT, she’d continued to keep that important knowledge current despite changing security concerns altering the bare minimum times quite a lot and refurbishments that never really enhanced her airport experience.  She knew where the good ladies that never had a queue was, which coffee shops provided the most drinkable coffee when the plane was non-specifically delayed and how to use her suitcase as a comfortable footrest and she wanted a bit of personal space on the main concourse.  

 

Occasionally, when she’d been travelling with Kate or Winifred Bambera, she’d also become familiar with the other part of the airport, the part that the UNIT private planes departed from.  Suffice to say, in that terminal there was never a queue for the ladies, the coffee was consistently excellent and someone else was worrying about her suitcase.

 

But this… this was something different again and, given how loudly those children had been shrieking at check in, a wonderful treat.  She’d never flown Business Class from Geneva to London - neither the flight nor her legs were really long enough for her to worry about the dimensions of her seat.  Compared to the rush hour tube, where a seat was invariably a fantasy and six inches of empty space in front of your nose a pipe dream it really wasn’t something Osgood had ever bothered to think about…

 

Paying attention to her phone, she was relieved to see that it was now a much happier 75% thanks to the fast charger Henri had found for her.  After a moment’s thought, she typed out a short text message and pressed send.  That task done, she took off her coat and looked at the menu…. Maybe a fruit juice was a good idea and a banana?

 

* * *

 

“What do you mean we have to wait for her to get off the plane?”  As she asked the question, Kate got up and headed back to her desk to see who that text message was from, still finding it impressive that she could get better mobile signal down here in her office than she could as she left by car to go home  - it was something to do with the tourists and overloaded cells, but since they were the wrong sort of cells as far as she was concerned, she had just nodded and kissed the one who did understand it all.

 

“Not enough elbow room at her seat…” Maria Walsh looked at Max who nodded his agreement with her.

 

“Economy isn’t that cramped is it?”  Kate was listening but was looking at her phone, reading Osgood’s message and firing off a reply.  “Or are you suggesting Captain Stewart is oversize?” she joked, returning with her phone and glasses to the coffee table where McGillop, Colonel Walsh and Max were trying to plan how exactly they were going to secure Geneva’s unregistered Banshee without too much structural damage.

 

“There’s not enough room for both of us,” explained Max, looking at Fran who had just re-entered the room, a less than happy expression on her face.

 

“Both of us?”  Kate looked at them, correctly interpreting the collectively averted gazes as meaning there was something she needed to be told that she wasn’t going to like.

 

“There’s an issue with the accreditation…” began Fran, looking at her notepad in the forlorn hope her notes were going to transform into something that was better news.  “And the way Regulation 7-3-872 has been interpreted.”

 

“Go on…” Kate leaned back in her chair and crossed her right leg over her left, her phone resting on her right knee.  If it weren’t for the expressions on everyone else’s faces she looked like she was part way through the retelling of an amusing anecdote, instead of asking for an explanation as to what was helping to turn their current problem into a potentially rather sizeable crisis.

 

“We, the lawyers I mean, spotted it this morning when you put us on Gatekeeper standby,” explained Colonel Walsh, staring resolutely at the far edge of the coffee table, two inches to the left of Max’s leg.

 

“Am I supposed to know Regulation 7-3-872 by heart?”  Kate got up and headed to the bookcase on the far side of her office and, after a moment’s pause to put her glasses on, pulled out a cream bound book that had the UNIT emblem on the front cover, along with a big red ‘confidential’ in capital letters diagonally across the front cover.  “It’s not the one that goes…” She walked slowly back to her armchair, flicking through the book which was Volume Seven of the UNIT Regulations until she found section 3.  “With the authority afforded to me by the Sovereign in recognition of my being an appointed representative to the Court of St James’ on behalf of the blah de blah etc I hereby detain you for the failure to obtain and maintain documents registering you as a permitted alien on this planet...blah blah your detention will be in accordance with all relevant treaties such as are deemed to apply at this point in Time and Space, which I hereby declare to be whatever time it is on my watch at that moment?”  She sat down.  “Is it?”

 

“No, that’s 873.”  Colonel Walsh shuffled her papers and found the page she was looking for, which was the scribbled note from the lawyer who’d been assigned to this Gatekeeper.  “872 is the one that defines ‘appointed representative’.”

 

“Ah yes, I remember drafting it…” Memory refreshed, Kate flicked to the right page in her book in a second and was reading it.  “Yes, here we go…”  She leaned forwards and looked up at the uniformly shell-shocked expressions on everyone else’s faces.  “What?  You didn’t think I just walked off the street into this job did you?”

 

“You drafted the Regulations?”  It was Max who broke the silence, his eyes wide with a mixture of shock and amazement at what he was learning about his Mum this week.  “Sorry Ma’am.”  He snapped his mouth shut when he remembered he was supposed to be thinking of her as ‘Greyhound One’ rather than ‘Mum’ at this point.

 

“Redrafted, rather painful process.”  She did however have fond memories of this particular section of the regulations as the battle to get them approved had happened in the Autumn of 2004, and was one of her first major successes after she’d been transferred to Geneva full time, and got her divorce...and Osgood.  Forcing herself to concentrate on the present, she found the page for regulation 872 in Section 3 of Volume 7 and read it carefully.  “Seems fairly straightforward, and there’s an appointment process in the schedule…” She started to flick to where the associated schedule was, details coming back to her rapidly about this whole area.  “So what’s the problem the lawyers think they’ve found?”  She had a lot of time for their lawyers as a rule, being entirely comfortable with the idea that she didn’t want to break any laws unless she absolutely had to and could use ‘the planet’s existence depended on it’ as a defence, with evidence.  But sometimes, when they were in the greyer ‘open to interpretation’ area and total planet obliteration wasn’t an immediate risk, she found the lawyers could be a little too risk adverse for her tastes.

 

“You’re the only appointed representative.”

 

“Pardon?”  It wasn’t like Maria Walsh to mutter.  “Could you repeat that?  I thought you just said that I was the only appointed representative.”

 

“Yes.”  Maria Walsh couldn’t remember the last time she’d squirmed, but she was definitely squirming as she met Kate Stewart’s unflinching gaze.  “It was one of the accreditation issues that was uncovered this morning…”

 

“This was why you didn’t want me to go to Personnel?” asked Kate, looking to Fran for confirmation.

 

“Yes.”  Like Maria, Fran was feeling less than comfortable under Kate’s scrutiny, a discomfort made worse by her total lack of ability to read her normally fairly readable boss. 

 

“I see.”  Wordlessly, Kate stood up and walked back over to the bookcase, returning the book of regulations.  As she walked back to her chair, the pin drop silence was broken by the sound of her phone vibrating.  “I’m not angry with anyone in this room,” was all she said as she reached for her phone, taking the opportunity Osgood’s text message offered to think about something else for a moment while she counted to ten, again.

 

“They’ve just started boarding the plane,” she announced, having sent off her text wishing Osgood a decent flight and encouraging her to have a nap if she could manage it.  “Osgood’s going to stay in the lounge until final boarding.”  Seeing the look of concern on Maria’s face, Kate smiled.  “She boards planes as late as she can - jet fuel vapour irritates her lungs.  And she’s in business class, so she won’t see or be seen by our Banshee.”

 

“Unless she’s also last minute.”  McGillop hadn’t meant to sound negative, but it was a logical point to consider and he was a nervous scientist.

 

“Ms Dimarones has been working at UNIT for three years, and we don’t yet know how long she’s been on the planet and unregistered.  Even if her non-registration was initially accidental, at some point in the last three years she will have learned of her oversight.  That she is still unregistered means it is now deliberate.”

 

“But…” Before McGillop could continue his point, Max jumped in.  Colonel Walsh wasn’t used to having her points debated, but then she also wasn’t that used with having to explain their tactical assumptions to scientists.

 

“McGillop, it’s not science logical but it’s what people do.  We know she’s doing something she shouldn’t be, and she knows it.  So she’s going to be nervous because she’s also doing something she’s not done before.”  Max glanced up to check that McGillop was following him, but also that neither his mother or the Colonel had a problem with him talking.  Seeing encouraging looks on everyone’s faces, and the bonus of a wink from his Mum, he pulled out the report he’d got from Ops and passed it to McGillop, enabling him to see that they’d been able to piece together about where she’d been for the last four years, and it had been entirely in the immediate vicinity of Geneva.  “This is her first flight, and she doesn’t want to stick out from the crowd.  That means she won’t be late.  She’ll be the model passenger, so far she already has been,” he added, picking up the tablet that he’d acquired in the last half hour when his unofficially at work day off had seen him become the ‘snatch’ op planner when it was confirmed that she would definitely recognise Josh Carter, ruling him out.  Not that Josh actually minded, as he had his hands full as it was trying to untangle some of the other issues that the day’s events so far had brought to light.  Right now, it was taking a lot of effort for Troop and the Colonel to keep pressing on, but while a compliment from Kate was almost certainly out of the question, Max, Josh and the Colonel were all determined that they wanted to avoid attracting the wrong sort of attention from Kate.  

 

“Airport CCTV, airline records and Swiss Emigration confirm she’s been on time to check in, done everything right for security, has one bag in the hold and one piece of carry-on.  Cleared Emigration in good time and is currently sat at the departure gate.”  He held up the tablet which, in one corner of the split screen, showed a relay of a grainy CCTV feed.  “If the boarding goes to plan, she’s in 42F which should be called for boarding in approximately 90 seconds.”

 

“Do I want to know why I’m the only person able to actually detain our Banshee surprise?” asked Kate, returning to their original point.

 

“Not really Ma’am,” said Fran quickly, which surprised Maria and McGillop, it not having occurred to them that saying ‘no’ to Kate Stewart was a viable option at the moment.  Clearly, judging from the momentary look of shock on Fran’s face, it hadn’t really occurred to her either despite her saying it.  “What I mean is, there’s not much time left and knowing won’t change anything in the plan so can I tell you tomorrow when we have a better idea please?”

 

“We?  Wait, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know…” Fran was right - it wasn’t going to help them deal with their immediate plan.  “So what’s the plan?”

 

“We’ve asked the aircraft be allocated to this gate here…” began Colonel Walsh, picking up a schematic diagram of the airport.  “And we’d like the economy passengers to disembark first so that we keep Osgood out of sight.  Can we send a message to her?”

 

“No!”  

 

If Maria was surprised to get an immediate and emphatic response from everyone except Fran, she did her best not to show it.

 

“Ok.”  She debated with herself whether she could ask for an explanation and if she could, who did she direct the question to.

 

“We’ve got an interference grid we can set up at the start of the jetway, so the moment she steps into it, the screams are neutralised.”  McGillop didn’t fancy trying to explain why Osgood’s curiosity could get her into difficulty so tried to help out by explaining the next bit of the plan which happened to also be the ‘science bit’.

 

“And the hope is that she doesn’t see me or Osgood until after she’s inside the grid?” guessed Kate, leafing through the rest of the brief notes Maria had prepared until she found the crude but informative diagram showing who would be standing where.

 

“Yes.”  

 

“And once I’ve advised her I have the authority to detain her?”

 

“Ma’am?”  Before Kate could answer, her desk phone rang, prompting Fran to nip out to her desk and answer it there, leaving Colonel Walsh squirming.

 

“I advise her of my authority to detain her the minute she’s stepped off the aircraft, but then what do we do?”  Kate was trying to be patient, knowing that what had been achieved since Win dropped her little bombshell on them was very good and yet they were still not quite there.

 

“Detain her Ma’am.”  Colonel Walsh knew she was missing something, knew that there had to be something they’d missed but she just couldn’t see it.

 

“How?  Where?”

 

“Here, at the Tower, until Geneva arrive.”

 

“And how do you propose to secure her and move her from the end of the airbridge to the Tower?”

 

“I…”  Just when Maria felt she had no option but to utter the most career limiting phrase she knew of and admit she did not know, Max jumped in.

 

“We will need to use a portable version of the interference grid to stop her being able to...do whatever it is her screams do to make materials melt as we transport her back to the Tower.  I admit I haven’t thought about restraints yet Ma’am…” Max was praying that McGillop was catching on to what he was, and wasn’t saying and would play along.  “But a well tied piece of rope, a few of the guys from Troop and a tranquiliser gun as a last resort should do it?”

 

“Do we have a portable version of the interference grid?” asked Kate, not disagreeing with Max’s plan but reasonably confident she’d spotted the main risk with it.

 

“We will do.”

 

“Ma’am?”  Fran hadn’t necessarily planned to be McGillop’s saviour but she distracted Kate from asking him one more question than he could answer.  “That was Jenkins…”  Although his most visible role was driving Kate when she needed to be driven somewhere, he was the transport specialist at the Tower and had a particular gift at organising the police escorts and vehicles for operations.  “They’re ready when you are Ma’am.”

 

“Thanks.”  Kate smiled at Fran and looked back at the drawings and papers scattered across her coffee table.  In so many ways, they were far from ready but a glance at the Geneva Airport CCTV still showing on Max’s tablet confirmed they were really out of time.  Just when she was about to start talking again, she paused, distracted by the last few passengers heading through the Gate.  Clearly they’d invited Business Class to board a minute or two ago.

 

* * *

 

“Your boarding pass please?”  Osgood parked her suitcase neatly by the counter and handed over the paper boarding pass to be recorded as ‘on’ the plane.  Knowing it took a minute or two for the computer to do its job, Osgood occupied herself with doing up her duffle coat - while technically indoors, she had never found the airbridge walkways out to the aircraft pleasant, with there being little to no effective sound proofing or heating.  Not wishing to arrive on the plane even more uncomfortable than she already was, she wasn’t taking any chances.

 

“Thank you Dr Osgood.”  The professionally cheerful official returned her boarding pass to her.  “Have a good flight.”

 

“Thanks.”  Pocketing her boarding pass, Osgood set off down the walkway, wheeling her small suitcase behind her, the toblerones and much of the content of her rucksack repacked into it so that once on the plane, it could be put away in the overhead locker and ignored until they landed.  She’d ignored the ‘Dr’ prefix - flying was the only time she tolerated being given a title and at least Doctor was what her passport was issued with.

 

Half way down the walkway, she had to stop walking at her usual speed and join the slow moving line of passengers as they approached the aircraft door and were directed to the correct seat.  Two small shuffled steps forwards, and she had to stop again, able at least to see that the pause was for a pushchair to be taken by a luggage handler with ear defenders and a fluorescent jacket, presumably for storing in the hold.  As they shuffled forwards again, Osgood found herself analysing the queue of people in front of her, relieved to not see anyone that looked like they would be too slow boarding the aircraft as she was starting to feel her throat itch.  Shifting her rucksack into a new position across her shoulders, she reached into her right duffle coat pocket and felt for her inhaler, not wanting to use it while she would be breathing in the jet fuel vapours but reassured that she had it to hand.  At the same time, she found her boarding pass again in her left pocket and pulled it out, now only two passengers away from the aircraft.

 

Her throat was definitely itching.

 

Her lungs were tightening.

 

Her nose was twitching.

 

The two passengers in front of her had effectively been one passenger - a husband and wife sat next to each other who had been directed quickly to the far side of the aircraft and told to turn toward the rear of the plane.  It was Osgood’s turn.

 

“Hello, welcome on board…” The stewardess stood in the aircraft doorway smiled automatically as she held her hand out for the boarding pass, the 5th time it had been checked since Osgood had arrived at the airport she noted automatically as she handed it over.

 

“Hello…” She didn’t get any further - speaking had filled her mouth with the taste of jet fuel.

 

Her eyes watered, her throat burned and she sneezed, twice, jolting her glasses in the process.

 

“Are you alright?”  The smile was still fixed in place, but the eyes showed understandable skepticism - infectious sneezes weren’t exactly welcome on international flights.

 

“Allergies…” Osgood automatically accepted back her boarding pass with one hand as she pulled out her inhaler with the other.  “Asthma..”

 

“Of course.  Seat 3D, just through there…” The stewardess stepped back and showed Osgood where her seat was.  “And we’ll bring you some water…”

 

“Thank you.”  Smiling in between her next three sneezes, which Osgood thought meant she probably still had another two as for whatever reason, allergy sneezes appeared to travel in sevens, she hauled herself up the step and into the plane, grateful that Kate was spoiling her with the upgrade and there, not to far away from her, was her seat.

 

Dropping like a deadweight into the seat, only just remembering to take her rucksack off before she sat down, Osgood took a puff of her inhaler and leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes for a moment while she waited for the medicine to take effect, glad that she was going home...glad that she was done with UNIT for the day….


	11. Chapter 11

“This is a Botagan Banshee, isn’t it?” asked Kate suddenly, stopping with one arm in her raincoat and looking at McGillop and Max who were still in her office, Colonel Walsh having already left to go and check that Troop and the other teams were briefed and ready to join their expanding convoy to Heathrow.

 

“Yes, female…” McGillop glanced at the post-it note he’d stuck to the front of his folder when they’d first got the news.  “UNIT HR records have a 1989 date of birth…” There was a split-second pause while Kate and McGillop both looked at each other and shared the same thought about how young their colleagues were getting, “...so if she’s a credible late twenties that would suggest she’s a teenager in Banshee terms.”

 

“That’s what I thought.”  Kate finished putting her raincoat on and reached for her desk phone.  “Grab the green book on the top shelf please Max.”  She punched in an extension and hit the speaker button so she could continue to pack her briefcase with the files she wanted.  After the fourth ring, the phone was answered.

 

“‘Ello.”

 

“Rosie?  Kate Stewart.”

 

“Oh, right, um…” McGillop and Max shared a look when they heard a crash that sounded like a mug breaking.  “Bollocks…”

 

“Anything dissolving?” asked Kate, evidently not remotely concerned by what she was hearing.

 

“No, but that was my favourite mug.”

 

“I will ask Captain Carter to hand deliver a new one before the weekend,” promised Kate sincerely, smiling when she heard the immediate reaction from Rosie.

 

“Is he the one with the weird muscles?”

 

“Yes Rosie, he’s the one with the enhanced strength.”

 

“Yummy….ooofff.”  There was a moment of silence which, again, Kate didn’t appear to be that fazed by as, briefcase packed, she opened her bottom desk drawer and pulled out a canvas ‘Fortnum & Mason’ shopping bag, into which she carefully put Osgood’s scarf, hot water bottle and a packet of peppermints.  “Right, ready.”

 

“I’ve leaving in five minutes to go detain a teenage Botagan Banshee at Heathrow.”

 

“Ooo…”

 

“Can you load a needle for me?”  Kate looked up at Max who was holding the book waiting for her to confirm he’d grabbed the correct green one and gave him the thumbs up.

 

“Needle case, five doses in red, five antidotes in green.”  Rosie whistled a repeating pattern of three notes, coincidentally the first three notes of ‘Jingle Bells’ realised McGillop after he’d heard the third repeat.  “Delivery or take-away?”

 

“Delivery please, side door in ten minutes?” asked Kate, relieved.

 

“Ohkay.”  And the line was cut as Rosie hung up the phone, Max and McGillop not that much clearer on who she’d been speaking to as neither could think of a suitable colleague called ‘Rosie’.

 

“Green book?” When it was clear she wasn’t going to explain that conversation, Max wondered what he was supposed to do with this rather large yet anonymous looking green book.

 

“Travels with me please.”  Kate double checked her desk, scooping up her reading glasses and shoving them in her raincoat pocket before walking towards her office door, understanding why Max was still there but not sure why McGillop wasn’t somewhere else.  “Are you ready to go McGillop?”

 

“What? Oh, yes, but…” The interference grid was already loaded as that was part of Troop’s field equipment, so as long as he had his tablet he could adjust the frequencies.  The portable solution however, well that was nowhere near ready.

 

“Work out what the portable interference grid looks like tomorrow - we’ll get it built next week,” she said kindly while shepherding him and Max out into her outer office where Fran was just finishing sorting out her desk, already wearing her coat.

 

“Yes, but…”

 

“We’re going with Plan B today.”  

 

“Yes, of course.  Right.”  Not sure whether to panic because he didn’t know if he was supposed to know what plan B was or be relieved that there apparently was a Plan B, McGillop gulped, cuddled his tablet and decided he really wanted to go to Heathrow with his house keys and season ticket in his pocket, and no doubt Osgood would be upset if he accidentally blew up the lab because he’d forgotten to check everything was stable before he left.  “I’ll go not blow up the lab,” he mumbled before spinning around and leaving at an impressively fast walk.

 

“What am I missing Fran?”

 

“ID.”  Fran handed Kate a lanyard had a series of photo ID passes hanging from it, all with Kate’s picture on them.

 

“All of them?” Kate slipped the lanyard over her head and started looking through the photocards, mentally ticking them off as she went through them, although her question would indicate that she thought she was missing some.

 

“Chip and pin upgrade.  The blue and white stripe one has replaced the two pink ones and the yellow one you haven’t got.”  Clearly this made sense to Kate who let the tangle of passes fall back against her shirt front, although Max was still trying to get his head round all the passes she did have and, more mind-blowingly, some of the job titles he’d seen on them.  “And you need this.”  Fran held out a slim black leather wallet that was just slightly larger than a credit card.  As the light caught it, Max saw it was embossed with the UNIT logo and his eyes widened when he realised what he was looking at.  “This is the new one…” added Fran, rather relieved that it had come through last week, replacing Kate’s previous set of passes with ones that were compatible with the latest Whitehall security policies.

 

“Hideous photo,” declared Kate, pulling a face when she flipped it open, enabling Max to get a quick glance at the inside of it.  In some ways, it wasn’t unfamiliar - in fact, he had an identical leather wallet in the back pocket of his jeans, as did Colonel Walsh, Osgood, Josh Carter and at least half a dozen other officers in Troop and other senior people at the Tower.  Inside them, were four panels and, when opened correctly and held up in front of someone so they could inspect it, the top left was emblem of UNIT in shiny silver metal, bottom left was their UNIT Identification card, top right was their equivalent identification to be used within the military and bottom right the same for civilian authorities.  While he was familiar with what his own looked like, and knew how it was broadly the same as Colonel Walsh’s, Kate’s was different, with the metal logo gold not silver and the individual IDs showed significantly more senior ranks than anyone else’s.  The final difference was that, like all the passes allocated to ‘Greyhound’ officers, between the embossed and metal crests were sensors that when activated, relayed the badge’s location to both Geneva and London.  “Thanks.”  She snapped the wallet shut with a practiced hand, and pocketed it in her raincoat.  “Anything else?”

 

“The hi-vis is already loaded, I’ve got the paperwork here…” Fran tapped the briefcase that was sitting on her desk.  “And hot water.”  She held out a matte metal thermos that Max recognised as being standard military issue - dull, strong and very effective.  “For later.”

  
“Thank you!”  Kate took the thermos with a smile and put it in the Fortnum’s bag.  “Anything else we need to deal with before we go?”

 

“No.”  Fran looked at Max, who was still holding the green book.  “Yes.  Is that what I think it is?”

 

“Probably,” agreed Kate, knowing what Fran was thinking and deciding it didn’t stop them setting off for the surface.  “Rosie’s meeting us at the side door.”

 

“Thanks for the warning.”  Fran respected the achievements and abilities of their relatively new lead medical scientist, but found her about the most challenging person to deal with in the Tower, which was saying something as they did not lack for awkward or difficult characters.  

 

In the eleven months Rosie had been working at UNIT, she was usually neither awkward nor difficult, quite the opposite in fact, being invariably friendly and eager to help or be helpful as much as she could - it was just rather unfortunate that she was well meaning but in anything outside of her scientific specialism, something of a walking disaster:  the last set of paperwork she’d submitted to Fran had been 7 weeks late, singed and covered in jam.  She was, however, impossible to dislike, assuming you were predisposed to like ‘mad scientists’ which Fran had discovered she was.

 

“Rosie?”  Max didn’t like to admit that he had no idea who they were talking about, but it had got to a point where he had no choice.  “Thanks,” he added quietly when Fran took the mysterious green book from him as they got in the lift with Kate, enabling him to once more have his hands free should he need to do something.

 

“Dr Ethel Onurosie, two floors up in medical-1.”  Kate wasn’t surprised he didn’t recognise her - as far as she was aware, she was one of the few who got away with calling the extremely eccentric but brilliant immunologist who had, in the last few months, cemented herself as their in-house alien expert by her nickname.  Extremely clumsy when dealing with anything that wasn’t a sample or specimen, she was most comfortable approaching any topic from the scientific perspective.   Try to get her to do something illogical or without a discoverable objective and you got to experience an impressively fierce temper.  Fortunately for everyone at the Tower though, Kate was very comfortable being scientific and logical and was prepared to be suitably transparent in her dealings with the immunologist.  With everyone following her lead, the Tower’s medical labs had been explosion free for several months now.

 

“And she’s providing you with plan B?” asked Max, trying to work out what an immunologist might have that would help with their banshee problem.

 

“Yes.  Hope Os has remembered her keys.”

 

“There’s the spare set at ours,” volunteered Max immediately, before realising what a random change of topic that was and wondering what was behind it.  However, before he could ask, Fran had worked out what the problem was.

 

“You left your suit jacket in your office,” observed Fran knowing that they couldn’t go back for them as, at that moment, they stepped out of the lift once the doors had finished opening, the corridor teeming with people moving about with purpose as the final checks underway on the convoy of waiting vehicles and last minute omissions and adjustments to kit and equipment were made.   “What do I do with this?” she held out the green book she’d taken off Max who had headed over to get his final briefing and equipment from where Colonel Walsh and Captain Carter were.

 

“Hang on to it,” said Kate, spotting someone she wanted to talk to before they set off for their high speed dash to Heathrow.  “I need to read it on the way… it’s the other half of Plan B.”

* * *

  
  


“Le Monde or Financial Times?”  The question caused Osgood to open her eyes, helping her realise she hadn’t really progressed beyond pushing her rucksack under the seat in front of her.  “And would you like me to put your case in the overhead locker?” continued the stewardess, unaware that the passenger in seat 3D was not really listening.

 

“What? Oh, yes please…” Osgood adjusted her glasses while she watched the stewardess put the newspapers she’d been holding down on a vacant seat and set about finding an empty overhead locker nearby.  “Thank you.”  Osgood smiled gratefully as she saw her case being put into the overhead locker just across the aisle from her, a smile that almost became a grimace as she twisted to find the other end of her seat belt, reminding her that she’d been sensible to skip lunch.

 

“Can I take your coat?” asked the stewardess seeing that 3D, Dr Osgood if she remembered the passenger list correctly, was still wearing a duffle coat.

 

“No thank you.”  Osgood undid the top toggle of the coat so she wasn’t feeling quite so strangled by it, but was not quite ready to take it off - she knew in the long run she’d have to take it off if she was to feel the benefit of it on her arrival at Heathrow but right now, she was still cold from the walk down the air bridge.  “But I’d like a Financial Times please.”  Accepting the newspaper, she paid the stewardess no more attention as she was immediately absorbed in the feature being ‘teased’ across the front page, above the newspaper masthead.  Gordy’s latest article series was being promoted well.  She was just reading his article on the legacy of the Apollo and Gemini Space Programmes - today’s was about the field of medicine when she was interrupted again.

 

“Sparkling wine?”

 

“Hmm?”  Blinking as she peered out from behind the newspaper, Osgood looked at the little tray of glasses and then up to the stewardess holding them.  “Oh, no thank you.”  Nodding, she disappeared behind the newspaper again, not feeling like wine was a good idea and already having had her fill of warmish orange juice in the lounge before she boarded.  She still hadn’t taken her duffle coat off.

 

She’d just finished reading Gordy’s article when she felt the plane start to move, at the same time as the Captain presumably started saying something politely reassuring and informative about their flight, but she missed it as it coincided with sneezes two to six of the second wave of jet fuel vapour triggered allergies as the plane was guided backwards through its own exhaust cloud.  Having been expecting that, she had managed to put down the newspaper in sufficient time to not destroy it - Osgood was already planning to take it with her for Kate to read: it would make a nice change to see Gordy’s article on the page rather than just get the text from the cuttings service - for one thing, Osgood wouldn’t have otherwise appreciated that, with the pictures and diagrams included on the page, Gordy’s article was actually filling the whole page.  No doubt he’d downplay the achievement, but Osgood was pleased for him and knew Kate would be too.

 

As they taxied out across the airport, the occasional flashing light strobing through the window on her right has they passed another plane or service truck, Osgood dutifully devoted most of her attention to the pre flight safety demonstration, although she did keep a close eye on how her throat and lungs were feeling.  She’d learnt the lesson the hard way and now at least had her inhaler to hand during take off but that didn’t mean she actually wanted to use it.  Demonstration finished and lungs still reasonably well behaved, she forgot about returning to the newspaper, instead tucking it between her hip and the armrest as, leaning back in her seat, she watched the world outside come to a gentle standstill and heard the engines begin to roar as they paused at the end of the runway.

 

Moments later, the darkened cabin making it easy for her to see the lights of the buildings streaking by, they were roaring down the runway before, when the physics was right, lifting into the air.  Closing her eyes as she concentrated on swallowing and breathing in such a way that she neither wheezed too much nor lost her hearing when her ears popped, Osgood drifted off to sleep, feeling warm and almost comfortable in her duffle coat, although it wasn’t as good as having her scarf, knowing she was on her way home….


	12. Chapter 12

“Everything in order Colonel?” asked Kate, deceptively casually as she moved with ease through the bustle of soldiers, scientists and vehicles that had assembled and were, when Greyhound One was satisfied, ready to set off in a gridlock generating convoy that would get them to Heathrow.

 

“Yes Ma’am.”  Colonel Walsh looked smaller than she was thanks to the oversized goggles that were sitting on her helmet; her all black uniform would have given her a menacing air if she hadn’t smiled at Kate.  It had been something of a frantic day, but they had just about managed to get everything done that they needed to as far as being able to get onto the airport with their equipment and get into position around the plane.  If they were really lucky, they’d even be in place before the passengers started disembarking.  “Regarding the detain and transfer…” 

 

“We’re going with Plan B.”  Kate looked around when she heard her name being called immediately followed by a bit of a debate.  “Max?”

 

“Yes M...Ma’am?”  Only Max and Kate would know how close he’d come to calling her ‘Mum’, but he caught himself in time: it was easier when he wasn’t ‘in plain clothes’ to remember she was the Boss.

 

“Sounds like Rosie’s arrived with Plan B.  Can you go help her please?”

 

“Ma’am.”  With the same laid back easy grace his father had, Max came to an easy ‘attention’ stance before striding off to intercept Dr Onurosie and escort her through the perimeter security which protocol required there be in place now that Gatekeeper was well and truly underway.

 

“Plan B Ma’am?” For the last half an hour or so, Maria Walsh had been trying to work out what Plan B might be but since there were no additional equipment or manpower requests, nor had there been any sort of threat assessment protocols to complete, she was at a loss as to what Plan B might actually be.

 

“Botox.”  Kate passed Fran her Fortnum’s shopping bag and watched with half an eye as it was put in the boot of a black estate car that was evidently going to follow them out to the airport as the ‘something comfortable’ to bring her and Osgood home.  “Sort of.”

 

“Do you have any additional orders Ma’am?” Fran, overhearing the Colonel’s question, mentally translated that as ‘what the flipping hell are you up to boss?’ which, thought Fran, smiling as she went through a final double check of the various permissions and accreditations that she’d been collating from numerous government departments throughout the afternoon and which were essential to have with them for a successful Gatekeeper Response, was a fairly reasonable question.

 

“Stay away from the pointy end?” suggested Kate finally, when she couldn’t think of anything else to suggest, having also worked out what Maria wasn’t saying.  “It’s fine Maria - you should have no issues with the detainment and transfer.”  Even if she’d known what else to say, the arrival of Dr Ethel ‘Rosie’ Onurosie with Max saw the opportunity to explain further to the Colonel gone.

 

“Kate!”

 

“Rosie, thank you.”  Reaching out to accept the black box that was being offered to her, both Kate and Rosie were surprised when Max and the Colonel both moved to stop them.  “Oh, yes.  Sorry Rosie, can you open it please?”  Seeing Rosie frown, both Maria and Fran started to brace themselves for the anticipated outburst that usually followed fairly quickly after the frown.  “You and I know what’s in it, but the Colonel is responsible for the convoy,” explained Kate easily, knowing what was causing Rosie’s reaction and how to handle it.  “She’s got to promise to all sorts of people I’m not trying to take over the world.”

 

“Cure its wrinkles more like,” came the tart response as Rosie obediently opened the black case and showed Max and the Colonel the five pre-loaded syringes with red plastic covers on one side and an identical set of five syringes on the other side, only those had green plastic covers.  “Red is a botulinum toxin, green is the anti-toxin.  Are you allergic to horses?”

 

“No…” Max glanced at the Colonel to see if she understood the importance of the question, but she was equally confused.

 

“Good.  Still stay away from the pointy ends though.”  Seeing no one was particularly interested in looking at the needles any more, Rosie snapped the case shut and handed it over to Kate who this time, was able to take it without intervention from the soldiers.  “One dose should do it.  Assuming metabolism rates blah-de-blah one shot should last about 2 hours, assuming you inject into the secondary larynx.  If you miss, inject green into what feels like a muscle on the upper arm.  If you stick a human with the red one, inject a green one in the same area.”

 

“Reversal is green in the secondary larynx?” checked Kate, trying to remember if she needed to ask anything else of her old friend and former colleague from back in the days before UNIT.

 

“Yes, but don’t see why you’d bother since it takes an hour to metabolise and the original dose wears off in 2.”

 

“Regulations Rosie.”  Kate smiled, expecting the huff and crossed arms that mentioning ‘Regulations’ in Rosie’s presence always got her.  “Thank you.”

 

“Be careful Kate…” Rosie looked around, taking in the numbers of vehicles and implied numbers of presumably highly trained and well armed soldiers that were just finishing boarding the various vehicles.  “That lad…” Rosie stepped forwards, so she could talk more quietly to Kate, although both Max and the Colonel had taken a few steps back and were now just waiting for Kate to be ready, while Fran was waiting with Jenkins for Kate to show some inclination toward actually setting off.  “Who came and got me?”

 

“Max?” Kate’s expression changed, her smile became more wistful and she looked thoughtfully in the general direction of Max.

 

“You know who he reminds me of?”  Rosie looked from Max back to Kate, no longer looking the feisty and eccentric, slightly combative scientist who seemed to be ageless, but instead like a sorrowful elderly lady in her early seventies.

 

“He should do.”  Taking care not to drop the black case, Kate leaned forwards and engulfed the smaller Rosie in a hug, closing her eyes for a moment to focus on not letting her emotions get the better of her.  “He’s Freddie’s son…”  She felt Rosie return the hug briefly before straightening up again and looking her old friend, who’d been her lecturer when she’d been an undergraduate and supervised Freddie, Max’s mother, through her PhD.  “And just like his father.”

 

“I thought I was seeing ghosts…” mumbled Rosie as she tightened her hug for a moment before stepping back, two loud sniffs the only indication she was having to fight to keep her emotions in check.

 

“They generally only visit if you’ve got alcohol.”  The quick, sharp response was classic Kate and helped Rosie return to her usual self.

 

“Any handsome ones?”

 

“Anne Boleyn’s wit is surprisingly contemporary as long as your French is up to scratch.”  For one brief moment, Kate was worried for the elderly scientist’s health as she was making some quite curious sounds, but it soon became clear Rosie was fine, but had managed to give herself hiccups.  Much as Kate would have liked to continue to talk with her former lecturer and colleague, she knew that time was advancing.  “I have to go Rosie…” she gestured vaguely behind her at the massed ranks of vehicles, all with their headlights on, only Max, Colonel Walsh, Fran and Jenkins not yet in a vehicle.  “Come to dinner?  Tomorrow night?”

 

“I…” Rosie’s instinct was to decline, but she realised that she did, despite the painful memories of that time, want to know more about the woman who had roared into her retirement with wit and promises of things that were beyond her imagination.  This Kate Stewart was very different to the angry university undergraduate she’d taught, different again to the Dr Stewart who had joined the department as a lecturer a decade later, newly married to a civil servant, almost unrecognisable as the same person until Rosie had seen her with Freddie and realised nothing important had changed.  “Thank you.”  Rosie was confident that, if she could stop herself being distracted by the aliens and the flashing lights and the general razzamataz that work at UNIT seemed to come with when compared to her final years in academia, she’d find the same Kate Stewart underneath it all.  But until then, she’d go with faith and trust.  “Haven’t you got a banshee to catch?”  

 

“Yes.”  Kate smiled and winked at Rosie, before turning around and walking to the vehicle that was clearly waiting for her.  Like the well-oiled machine they were supposed to be, the rest of the UNIT team tasked to be the Gatekeeper response force shifted smoothly into gear and, with blue and red flashing lights as escort, left the Tower.

 

It had taken less than 90 seconds and saw both Colonel Walsh and Jenkins breathe sighs of relief as they set off down the Embankment: so far at least, everything was going to plan.

* * *

  
  


“Have you got the green book?” asked Kate as they turned onto the M4, nearly at their destination.

 

“Yes Ma’am.”  Fran picked up the book from the briefcase at her feet and passed it back to Kate, risking a sideways glance at Jenkins as she did so.  Although clearly focussed on driving, she was reassured to see him grin and half wink at her as they roared onto the M4, his face colouring alternately red and blue as the lights flashed on their police escort.  They were going to get there in time.

 

“Thanks.”  Taking the book from Fran, Kate leaned back in her seat with it on her lap and once more lapsed into thoughtful silence.  She’d not spoken, except to ask for the book, since they’d left the Tower.  Instead, her lip caught between her teeth, she’d looked out the window as they eased their way through the London rush hour traffic, lost in her thoughts.  While she wouldn’t have expected to say anything, Fran had been slightly surprised that even Max, the fourth and final occupant of their armoured Land Rover, hadn’t known what to say to the unusually silent Greyhound One until that point.

 

“Would you like the light on Ma’am?” asked Max quietly, knowing that it wasn’t dark enough to read in the back of the vehicle, not sure what the point was of asking for the book if she wasn’t going to look at it.

 

“Mmm?” Surprised, Kate turned away from the window and looked at him thoughtfully, like she was trying to recall why he was there.  “Oh, yes.  Thanks Max…”

 

Looking down at the book in her lap, she carefully opened it, the old green leather cover creaking as she turned it back to reveal the contents page in illuminated Gothic calligraphy, written by hand centuries ago.  Running her eye down the page, she found what she was looking for and turned, with equal care, to the correct page.

 

“As I thought,” she muttered as she angled the book slightly, so as to better catch the gentle light from the small overhead light Max had turned on for her.  “Right Shoulder, so left if I’m facing her.”  She studied the page for another minute or so before moving the scrap of paper she’d found inside the cover to mark the page.  “Thanks, you can turn off the light now Max,” she added as she closed the book, placing it carefully on the seat next to her, between her and Max.

 

“Everything ok?” Max wasn’t sure if he was asking his boss or his mother, but didn’t care.

 

“Fine.”  Kate turned and smiled at him, not sure if she was reassuring her son or herself.  “Just turned into a longer day than I’d expected…”  As he smiled in sympathy, his face partially illuminated by the police escort’s lights and the motorway’s street lights, she was struck in the same way Rosie had been earlier as to just how like his Mother and Father he looked.  “And I’m missing Os…” she admitted quietly, definitely speaking to her son rather than her security.

 

“You’re going to see her soon,” he reminded her, equally quietly.  “Can I ask you a question?”

 

“Of course…” Glad to be distracted from her thoughts, Kate looked at him encouragingly.

 

“It’s a Mum question, not a Boss question.”

 

“I won’t tell the Colonel if you don’t,” she teased, reaching inside her raincoat sleeve to find her shirt cuff, only to realise she’d never unrolled her sleeves.

 

“Rosie, I mean Dr Onurosie… she’s a biologist? Like you and Nana?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Is it weird that I think I’ve met her before?”

 

“No.”  Kate took a deep breath and reached out to squeeze his hand, noticing as she did so that they were turning off the motorway, which meant they only had a minute or two before she had to ‘be’ Greyhound One again.  “I thought you were probably too young to remember meeting her or I would have said something.”

 

“Did she know Nana well?”  He didn’t mind that she hadn’t said anything - she was right anyway, he hadn’t remembered her, not until he’d thought out how she waved her hands about as she spoke and fidgeted from foot to foot.  It reminded him of Mrs Tiggywinkle, from the Beatrix Potter books he’d had read to him as bedtime stories, and in turn, as he thought about those stories, he’d remembered someone in Nana’s work that had always reminded him of Mrs Tiggywinkle...

 

“Yes.  She knew your Tata too.”

 

“Ah.”  Max looked out of the window, past Kate’s shoulder and saw them approaching the airport, anticipating he’d start to hear the commands and orders to Troop in his radio earpiece any moment.  “Think she’d mind telling me some stories?” he asked, looking back at Kate, a hopeful grin beginning to appear on his face.  “Not that yours aren’t great and all…” he added quickly, not wanting to offend her.

 

“But?” she teased, relieved he was taking the news seemingly well.

 

“But I think Nana had help getting into trouble when she was a student…” He laughed when she stuck her tongue out at him.  “Tata always said your middle name was trouble.”

 

“Did he now?”  She’d known that was Johnny’s joke, but hadn’t known Max had ever been old enough to hear his father tell it.

 

“Yeah.  Said that was why you were the best friend she could have.”  He heard the radio chatter start, signalling it was time to get ready.  “He’d have said the same about Os, for you.”

 

“Are you sure you’re not too sweet to be a soldier?” She bit her lip to keep the emotions that had to stay inside inside.  She knew she was probably supposed to be cross with his lack of timing, given that they were right in the middle of Gatekeeper but she wasn’t cross, quite the opposite. 

 

She’d spent most of the day before the discovery of the Banshee feeling bad for not being able to stop the UNIT politics getting to the point where Osgood and others had been caught up in it, caught in the crossfire between warring bureaucrats who’d hated Kate and everything she was making UNIT into.  That feeling of failure, of not being able to protect and shield Osgood particularly had only got worse when her instincts that all was not as well as it could be in UNIT had been proven in the worst possible way, with an alien on a plane.  She’d spent the rest of the day hoping that this time would be third time lucky, that after the first time with Missy and the second time with the Doctor (although Kate did grudgingly accept it wasn’t the Time Lord’s fault that Bonnie blew up the plane Osgood and he were on, and he did at least have the presence of mind to travel with parachutes somehow), this time the plane would land and Osgood would be safe before the alien decided to be evil.  Better yet, maybe this time the alien wouldn’t even be evil, just useless at the admin?

 

“Experimental model.”  Max looked down at the green book that was still sitting on the seat between them.  “Tolerated by only the very best Commanders.”

 

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

 

“Yes Ma’am.  Ma’am?”

 

“Yes Captain?”

 

“Compliments of Colonel Walsh, could you go and flash a pass or something because the plane’s on final approach and if we’re to be at the Gate before it, either you need to talk quickly or she’s got to start shooting… Ma’am.”

 

“The Colonel said all that?” asked Kate, amused as she accepted the hi vis vest that Fran was passing her, knowing it had some suitably impressive sounding title printed on its back.

 

“I might have paraphrased Ma’am, and I might be being yelled at for doing so, Ma’am.”

 

“Let’s keep our powder dry for now…mine and Colonel Walsh’s.” Kate looked out of the window and saw that Jenkins had driven them right up to the access gate that currently wasn’t letting them in, Captain Carter ready to escort her to the Colonel once she got out of the now stationary car.  “After all, Osgood really does hate the paperwork when we blow things up.”

 

And with that, Greyhound One set her shoulders and opened the door, selecting the pass that identified her as the Chief Immigration Officer (Aliens), and as such outranking every other member of the Immigration Services (or Border Force as she reminded herself she should probably remember to call them) on the airport tonight.  It was time to catch themselves a Banshee…. 

 

It was time for Kate to take Osgood home.

 


	13. Chapter 13

Looking out the aircraft window, Osgood was intrigued to see that the airport looked a little busier than it normally did as, in addition to the usual refueling tankers and baggage trucks, there appeared to be an assortment of police cars and motorbikes parked on the tarmac by the terminal building.  Looking more closely, she realised that not only was there an assortment of police, but there was also a well polished black estate car which, had the blue lights not been flashing through the radiator grill and on the wing mirrors, might have been ignored or overlooked in the gloom of the autumn evening.

 

As the plane turned to the right, making the sweeping turn that would see them parked at one of the gates on the main terminal building at Heathrow, Osgood saw that the vehicles were actually a police convoy to escort the black estate car...which appeared to be waiting for this plane.  Leaning forwards so she could see out of the window more clearly as they inched steadily towards the terminal building, Osgood adjusted her glasses and watched intrigued.  Thanks to her job at UNIT, she’d become rather more used to travelling across London and the UK in fast cars escorted at speed by police with blue lights flashing and sirens blazing than she’d ever thought possible given her desire to be a scientist rather than her sister’s plan to be a princess or film star.  In her sister’s defence, she had only been seven, but even then Osgood had known she wanted to be a scientist… Still, no matter how often she’d travelled in the convoy for work, she’d never before had the opportunity to study one from this vantage point: it really was quite fascinating the way the police had parked close enough to the car to afford it ‘protection’ but not so close that the occupant of the car couldn’t easily get out as the plane got nearer.

 

Craning her neck, she was surprised to see that at the same time as the engines changed tone to signal they’d arrived, not only was there a second convoy parked up with a police escort, but someone had just got out of one of the nondescript dark vehicles at its centre.  From this distance, it was hard to see who they were, but whoever they were it was impressive to see that they clearly respected the airport safety rules as Osgood was fairly certain she’d seen them wearing ear defenders as well as the bright yellow high visibility vest over their pale raincoat.  What good the vest was doing was probably debatable as the raincoat hadn’t been fastened and was soon flapping about as the various air currents from the weather, airport terminal building and exhausts from the big aircraft engines winding down caught the long coat. 

 

No longer able to see anything other than the parked cars which didn’t really hold her interest, Osgood busied herself with making sure she had everything packed away in her rucksack and took a precautionary puff on her inhaler, knowing from past experience that she didn’t always cope well when she moved from the not exactly fresh air of the aircraft cabin to the fume heavy air of just outside the aircraft and finally, the heavily air conditioned air of the airport building.  Grateful again for the extra hand baggage allowance that her unexpected upgrade to Business Class had given her, she appreciated being able to still have her rucksack out and not packed away in her suitcase in order to meet a strict single bag rule.  

 

“Your case Ma’am.”

 

“Thank you.”  Instinctively, Osgood accepted her suitcase from the stewardess and remembering not to hit her head on the overhead locker, stood up, ready to disembark.  Seeing that no one had started moving down the aisles to disembark yet, she sat back down and turned her phone back on to see what messages she might have to catch up on before she’d send a message to Kate to let her know she’d landed.

 

* * *

  
  


“All set Colonel?”  Kate was leaning against the side of the jetway control platform, ignoring the beep of her phone that told her Osgood had just sent her a text message, having tucked herself out of the way there when they had finally arrived.  It had, unsurprisingly, taken all of her numerous IDs and the majority of the pieces of paper Fran had brought with her to get them through the various layers of security and bureaucracy.  She knew that the Colonel and members of Troop were finding the need to be polite, smile and remember their pleases and thank yous trying, nevermind the indignity of having to be escorted by the airport based Metropolitan Police Officers, but Kate wasn’t that fazed.  While she appreciated that she could, if necessary, charge through the airport to the plane scattering everyone and everything in her path, as long as they had the time, she was happy to do it the polite way.  For one thing, they’d no doubt have to come back again one day as not all unregistered aliens obliged by arriving by Eurostar, and she’d prefer not to blow up her bridges if possible.  But now she really thought about it, in this final moment of calm before the storm (howling wind was definitely forecast), she found it vaguely reassuring it wasn’t exactly easy to met an aircraft at Heathrow with your own heavily armed soldiers, even with the proper paperwork.

 

Maria Walsh wasn’t entirely sure how exactly Kate Stewart was managing to look so bloody relaxed given that they were about to try and detain a potentially extremely volatile Bogatan Banshee who, if the UNIT records were correct, could have them sinking waist deep into molten  _ stuff  _ as the build environment around them, starting with the jetway they were standing on and the aircraft they were looking at, liquified around them - she was trying very hard not to think about what might happen to her weapons.

 

“Troop are in position Ma’am, and our perimeter is secure.”  If this banshee tried to make a run for it, they’d get her.  What they’d do with her once they got her however, that was something that was more of a mystery although she’d learned to put a lot of faith in their tranquiliser darts.

 

“McGillop?”  Kate stayed in her corner but turned to look at the nervous looking McGillop who was alternatively hugging his tablet to his chest and squinting at it.

 

“Interference grid up and running… as long as she remains on the platform we’re ok.”  He gestured to where the limits of the grid were, prompting the Colonel to reposition a couple of Troop slightly - she’d anticipated needing to have manpower to stop the banshee from rushing up the jetway into the main terminal building, but hadn’t considered that she might try and escape by going back onto the aircraft or down the external access staircase.  Lts Tomkor and Chen however, now cut off both those options.

 

“In which case…” Kate took the black case that contained the needles out of her raincoat pocket and opened it, selecting a red one which she held in her hand, putting the case back in her pocket.  “A Bogatan Banshee’s secondary larynx is in their RIGHT shoulder.  That’s the larynx that produces the high pitch sounds.”

 

“Her mouth’s in her shoulder?” Everyone looked at McGillop.  “Oh, I, uh, said that out loud then.”

 

“Yes McGillop.”  Kate grinned and stepped forward so she was stood a couple of steps away from the still closed aircraft door but slightly to the side so that people could walk past her.  “And no, her larynx is in her shoulder, the noise comes out from her mouth but we won’t be able to hear it.”  Kate looked around once more, noting the familiar faces of Troop, McGillop, Fran and Max and the unfamiliar and slightly shell-shocked faces of the airline ground staff and their more ‘conventional’ security and immigration colleagues who had joined them.  There wasn’t a lot of room for the passengers, but that was how Troop liked it, with virtually single file necessary to get off the plane.

 

“That’s plan B?” asked Max, also not entirely realising he’d spoken aloud, although just about covering up his momentary error with a belatedly added, ‘“Ma’am.”

 

“Actually, it was my plan A,” observed Kate as she pulled out her UNIT ID from her pocket and held it in her left hand, ready to display when the moment came.  “But nobody asked me…” she added, amused rather than cross, although it was another ‘lesson learned’ to add to the long list of things that today had seen crawl out from the woodwork that was UNIT.  “Mr Rombas?”  she attracted the attention of the airline turnaround coordinator who wasn’t sure if he was lucky or cursed to have been allocated to this afternoon arrival from Geneva.  “We’re ready when you are, economy first please.”

* * *

  
  


If the first passengers off the plane were surprised to be greeted by three heavily armed soldiers, a pleasant looking blonde lady in a yellow hi-visibility vest, a smiling large man in a matching hi-visibility vest and a smaller, more nervous looking one in addition to the usual airline airport staff, they managed to pull off the nonchalant innocent traveller look very well.  A few even managed to keep their jaws off the ground when they turned the corner on the jetway and met the two armed police officers and pair of UK Border Force officers.  Still, with the plane only half full, and most of the passengers reasonably frequent travellers for whom airports held little novelty, the passengers were pouring off fairly smoothly and quickly.

 

“Seems we’re up,” observed Kate calmly, seeing the stewardess who was stationed at the aircraft door to wish everyone a good evening turn towards them and give a quick thumbs up signal.  As Colonel Walsh and Lts Chen and Tomkor double checked their weapons one final time, Kate made sure she was stood slightly to the side so she wouldn’t be easily spotted by their banshee until she was near enough to the aircraft door that Tomkor and Chen could grab her if she tried to stay on board the plane.  With McGillop stood equally out of the way so he could concentrate on monitoring his interference grid, it was up to Max to do the initial identification as with the combination of his non-uniform clothes and not being a regular Geneva visitor, the odds were he wouldn’t be immediately recognised.

 

“Have a good evening…” said the Stewardess, smiling at the next passenger to approach the door.

 

“Thank you.”  The smartly dressed woman whose hair had changed from brown to red since she’d gone through Geneva airport security concentrated on not tripping in her high heels as she stepped down off the aircraft, and thus failed to see Max stood in front of her until it was too late.  “Uh…”  By the time she was looking up, expecting to see whoever was stood in her path, Max was stood just past her left shoulder, in prime restraining position and she found herself looking at Kate Stewart.

 

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” she advised lightly, knowing that ‘Teresa Dimarones’ had just thought about turning around and trying to disappear either down the emergency exit stairs or go back on board the aircraft.  “Nor that,” she added conversationally, when she saw the pattern of the woman’s breathing start to change, suggesting she was getting ready to demonstrate her upper register.  Waiting to see what else this clearly far from innocent banshee was going to do next, Kate wasn’t surprised when she suddenly was nose to nose with the woman as she thought she might get somewhere rushing at Kate.  “That won’t work either,” explained Kate, holding her ground as the banshee stopped abruptly, her wrist and arm caught firmly by Max, her eyes focussed on the end of whatever weapon Colonel Walsh was presumably pointing at her from her position just behind and to Kate’s left.  “So if you would like to take a step backwards please…” To the banshee’s slight credit, she did at least realise that this wasn’t a suggestion and did indeed take two small steps backwards, putting some space between her and Kate and crucially as far as Kate and McGillop were concerned, keeping her squarely in the centre of the interference grid.  Admittedly, if she hadn’t moved of her own volition, Max wouldn’t have found shifting the 5 foot 2 tall petite woman all that difficult.

 

Kate risked a quick glance past the banshee, relieved to see that the airline staff from both the plane and Heathrow were doing an admirable job of staying out of the way and keeping the curious passengers on the plane.

 

“I’m sure you thought you’d picked a lovely day for a visit, but I’m afraid it’s cold season here.”  Kate held up her UNIT ID wallet with her left hand and flipped it open, displaying the gold UNIT symbol and her various identifications as she continued to address the somewhat shell shocked banshee who was clearly trying to work out why she wasn’t causing the walls to literally melt away.  “My name’s Kate Stewart, UNIT Chief Scientific Officer and UNIT London Head, but you already knew that Ms Dimarones.”  She saw the flash of red fire in the woman’s eyes, confirming that she was definitely a Bogatan Banshee.  Taking a deep breath, and mentally cursing the fact that the lawyers had insisted the regulations be backward compatible to the Elizabethan era as well as compliant with more contemporary intergalactic legal regimes, she started the formal process of detainment.

 

“With the authority afforded to me by the Sovereign in recognition of my being an appointed representative to the Court of St James’ on behalf of the United Intelligence Task Force I hereby detain you for the failure to obtain and maintain documents registering you as a permitted alien, specifically a Bogatan Banshee, on this planet…”

* * *

  
  


“Excuse me?”  Osgood adjusted her glasses while she waited for the cabin steward to turn around and respond to her call.  “What’s the delay please?” She wasn’t usually all that bothered about how long it took for her to get off the plane but she was starting to get cold now she could feel the breeze coming in through the open aircraft door and the cooler, jet fuel vapour laden air was making her throat itch again.

 

“There’s an immigration issue,” he said quickly, trotting out the stock phrase they’d been told to use if anyone asked what the delay was, not remotely interested in this funny looking duffle coat wearing person that definitely wasn’t his type.  “But I’m sure it will be resolved quickly.”  Smiling tightly, he bustled off towards the galley, leaving Osgood to consider what to do.  Seeing that her fellow passengers had moved nearer the exit, presumably intending to try and push their way ahead of the few remaining economy passengers when they were allowed to leave, she decided that she was sufficiently tired, uncomfortable and generally grumpy enough to become a ‘pusher’, Osgood stood up again, taking care not to bang her head on the overhead lockers.  Checking that her duffle coat was fastened all the up to the last toggle before her neck, that her passport and train ticket were in her coat pocket along with her inhalers, and that her rucksack was comfortably settled on her back, she decided to at least move up to the galley and stand with the couple of other business class passengers.  That way, when they were able to leave, she wouldn’t be last off the plane.

 

“I’m sure it won’t be much longer,” observed another of the cabin crew as she stepped slightly to the side so that the passenger from 3D could peer around the corner of the galley cupboard and see the tops of people’s heads same as the stewardess.

 

“Oh?”  Osgood straightened her bowtie which was just visible in the open top of her coat and looked suitably curious at the stewardess who clearly wanted to confide in someone.

 

“Passenger from economy.  Some sort of elite immigration team, not like the usual ones we get.”

 

“Really?”  Osgood wasn’t that bothered about what was going on, but it was easier to keep her mind off her itching throat and tightening lungs if she was concentrating on making conversation.

 

“Yeah - there’s a  woman in a raincoat who’s not that different to the usual Home Office suits we sometimes see, but she’s got some sort of security team with her.”  Osgood felt an elbow nudge her, clearly meant to draw her attention to the cabin crew steward who’d told her it was an immigration delay in the first place.  “Clive’s hoping they’re SAS, because they’re all in black.”

 

“Not police officers?” asked Osgood, finding herself suddenly much more interested in what was happening just outside the aircraft.

 

“No, proper military looking, with helmets and guns…”  The stewardess looked at Osgood, belatedly wondering why this passenger was so interested suddenly.

 

“The blonde woman, is she about my height, in a beige raincoat and a yellow hi vis jacket?”  As she asked the question, Osgood was unfastening the top few toggles on her duffle coat, wanting to get something from her inside coat pocket.

 

“Yes…”  The stewardess stopped trying to see what was going on outside and gave Osgood her full attention.  “How do you know this?”

 

“I think I’m supposed to be there,” explained Osgood, pulling out her UNIT ID and showing the surprised stewardess the badge with the UNIT emblem and the ‘civilian authorities’ version of her ID, which identified her as being fairly senior in the Home Office.  Meeting no resistance from the speechless stewardess, Osgood propped her suitcase neatly against the drinks trolley and took a couple of steps forward, trying to catch what might be being said just outside the aircraft door.  After a moment, she began to pick out a voice that sounded reassuringly familiar amongst the other noises of the airport.

 

_ “...I hereby detain you for the failure to obtain and maintain documents registering you as a permitted alien on this planet…” _

 

“Did she just say alien?” asked the Stewardess, looking at Osgood in amazement, having evidently decided to join her in trying to listen in on what was happening.

* * *

  
  


“I had intended to ask you if you were going to accompany my officers in a peaceful manner,” continued Kate, adopting a more conversational tone as she looked the still non-audible but clearly not silent banshee in the eye.  “Perhaps because I’d thought this was an innocent administrative misunderstanding but I’m glad I brought the dogs along in case you were far from innocent or peaceful.”  As Kate took another step forwards, the Banshee tried to writhe out of Max’s grip in another attempt at escape but all that she achieved was Max being joined by Lt Chen who managed to not only cuff the banshee’s hands behind her back but also firmly grasp her by the right elbow, allowing Max to concentrate on holding her left elbow and shoulder equally firmly.

 

“It is my duty to advise you that your detention will be in accordance with all relevant treaties such as are deemed to apply.  In accordance with the Universal Treaty to which Bogatius is a signatory, you will be transported under suitable security for the mutual protection of both our species and any registered aliens you may encounter, to a detention facility of appropriate quality until your purpose for visiting and failing to register is explained to a satisfactory standard.  Since you are a Banshee, and meet the species characteristics set out in Article 6 of the Universal Treaty…”  Kate showed the needle to the Banshee, pulling off the red needle cover as she did so.  “It is my right to require you to only communicate with your primary larynx and confine your communication to those frequencies that this planet’s primary signatories consider to be audible spectrum.  Since I have just cause from your behaviour since arriving on this planet to believe that your intention is to be a non-cooperative detainee, it is my right to neutralise your secondary larynx for the protection of my world.”  Pausing for breath, Kate became aware that there was some slight movement in the door of the aircraft but was sufficiently near the end of her lengthy recitation of the regulations that she paid it little heed and pressed on.  If it was a problem, Troop could sort it.

 

Stepping close to the banshee once more, Kate took hold of the still writhing woman by the upper arm, relieved when by some unspoken understanding, Max and Chen tightened their hold on the banshee as Colonel Walsh moved in behind Kate, her weapon still trained precisely on the banshee’s chest.  Stabbing the needle into the front corner of the banshee’s shoulder, exactly where their ancient alien anatomy records indicated the secondary larynx was, Kate concluded with her reading of the rights.

 

“In accordance with the terms of the Universal Treaty and the limitations set out under the Biological Warfare Ruling of the Third Congress of Gallifrey, I have administered a temporary paralysing agent to your larynx, the effects of which will wear off in the event of the agent not being readministered.  Furthermore, should you demonstrate that you are cooperating fully and peacefully, the agent can be fully reversed.”  She pulled out the needle and stepped back, looking at the banshee who was now spluttering what could only be described as rather ‘adult’ Bogatian phrases, primarily focusing on Kate’s parentage and genetic similarity with some rather ugly and foul smelling mollusc species that weren’t intended to be compliments.  “Thought not.”  

 

Stepping back again, Kate looked at McGillop who gave her a thumbs up: his scans were showing that the injection had worked and for all the banshee’s efforts, she was no longer producing potentially destructive sound waves.

 

“She’s all yours Colonel.”

 

“Of course.  Tomkor?”  Maria Walsh nodded at Tomkor who replaced Max as the soldier holding the banshee’s left arm.  “With your permission Ma’am?”

 

“Get her out of my sight Colonel,” instructed Kate, no longer interested in the banshee who, now her various types of threat had been neutralised, could be returned to the Tower ahead of Geneva sorting her out - after all, it was their mess that Kate had just cleaned up for them.

 

“Ma’am.”  As Colonel Walsh spoke into her radio, which saw the police and immigration officers join them from further down the jetway, she absently noted that someone nearby was sneezing five, no six, no seven times in rapid succession.


	14. Chapter 14

 

“Inhaler!”  Kate issued the reminder to Osgood automatically, without really registering that she’d done it and much to the surprise of Fran who was holding out the necessary paperwork that Kate had to sign to complete their detainment of the Banshee.  While she had noticed Osgood appearing in the doorway of the aircraft a few moments earlier but she hadn’t thought that Kate, who had to all intents and purposes been focussed solely on the Banshee, had even noticed the timely appearance of the scientist.  

 

“And here Ma’am.”  Fran was brought back to the matter at hand with a bump when she realised Kate had failed to initial in a crucial spot on page 3.

 

“Ah…”  Obliging with a scrawled but distinctive KLS, Kate was keeping one ear on Osgood’s breathing and one eye on their still excessively animated banshee.   “Any more?”

 

“That’s it, thank you.”  Fran put the papers neatly back in her clipboard folder and held it securely against her body, not wanting anything to happen to the contents when she walked back to the vehicles.

 

“Banshee?” asked Osgood quietly, having skirted carefully around the alien in question and had now joined Fran and Kate at the side of the little platform space at the end of the jetway.

 

“Yes.”  Kate wasn’t surprised that Osgood had worked out who their unexpected guest was.  “Unregistered and unfriendly.”

 

“Clearly.”  Osgood looked over to McGillop who hadn’t yet noticed her, being someone obsessed with staring at the tablet, checking and double checking that the interference grid was holding in spite of the relief the injection had provided.  “Grid seems to have worked so far…” Osgood looked in turn at the eight battery operated combined transmitter and sensor posts that looked not dissimilar to a series of sink plungers that had been set up in a circle around the platform, a series of small flashing LED lights on their very tops the only clue to their operational status.

 

“McGillop’s done well.”  Not as well, thought Kate, as Osgood would have done, but Kate was at least woman enough to mentally slap herself and point out that Greyhound One wasn’t supposed to be biased.  

 

“It’s easier once she’s in the cars.”  Osgood considered the positioning of the sensors again, now she was no longer being distracted by the Banshee who had proved to be a remarkably fluent swearer in English, French, German and Italian, although living in Geneva would probably explain most of that.  Fortunately for everyone, the Dogs had managed to get her out of their immediate vicinity and her shouts, if they were continuing, were now being drowned out by the general noise of the airport as she was being marched the short distance across to the waiting vehicles that would take the Banshee back to the Tower.

 

“It is?”  

 

Osgood blinked, gulped and used her inhaler again, not really sure if it was the polluted air, not being fully acclimatised to the damper, warmer cold air of London, the stress of being subjected to a full intensity ‘Greyhound One’ questioning look or something far, far less professional.  Relatively unfazed by Osgood’s wheezing interludes, Fran, Max, Colonel Walsh and Kate waited calmly for her to answer the question while McGillop, oblivious to their discussion, was starting to shut down the interference grid.  Meanwhile, the rest of the passengers resumed disembarkation, a few showing mild curiosity as to who the rather eclectic gathering of people just outside the aircraft door were, but most were head down and focused on getting through to their train, taxi or other transport option without being any further delayed.

 

“You brought the Land Rovers?  The new ones?” asked Osgood when she was finally able to breathe steadily and speak at the same time.

 

“Yes...”  Colonel Walsh wasn’t sure what the significance of the question was, but tried to give a reasonably comprehensive update, not sure whether she was relieved or concerned that Kate Stewart looked as surprised by Osgood’s very different opinion about what they’d identified as being the riskiest part of the detainment.  “We’ve got five Land Rovers with us - three of the latest issue and two from last year.”  She wasn’t proud of how quickly her teams got through vehicles but was just relieved that Kate was reasonably understanding about the ones that had been dissolved by the acid and crushed by those telephone boxes, even if her ears were still somewhat ringing from Kate’s fury when they’d failed to renew the parking permits and they’d ended up with all those parking tickets.  “We started a clock when you injected her Ma’am, and I’ve tasked Lt Chen with applying the subsequent doses since he’s paramedic trained.”  And Lt Tomkor had confessed an hour ago to a needle phobia: she and Carter were still trying to work out how someone could have Tomkor’s service record and still faint at the sight of a needle.

 

“So you’re not using one of the new Land Rovers as the transfer vehicle?”  Osgood adjusted her glasses and straightened her bowtie as she very carefully tried not to seem like she was criticising the Colonel’s strategic and tactical planning.  “You must let me know how we compromised their functionality for Troop with the customisation before the next ones are delivered,” she said quickly, not pleased if their attempts to make the vehicles more useful with scientific and technological customisations had made them less useful from a, in her view, more basic military muscle perspective.

 

“We can switch the order of the vehicles in the convoy…” Maria scratched the back of her neck between the bottom of her helmet and the top of her body armour as she tried to work out what on earth they’d missed.  “I want the package in vehicle three.  Based on how we rolled up, that’s an older vehicle but we can re-order.”

 

“What’s the benefit of a new Rover Osgood?” asked Kate, mentally starting a new ‘things we learnt today’ list to go with all the others she’d already complied.

 

“Umm, not much really, at least, not in terms of actual vehicle performance, aside from emissions…” She adjusted her glasses again when she saw Kate’s lips twitch in what she knew was her girlfriend trying not to smile, reminding her that Greyhound One could therefore be about to bark.  “But we did put multi-frequency sensors in the frame and coat the critical components in a synthetic polymer…”

 

“Which means what?” Although she’d probably managed to put two and two together and, knowing both Os and her ‘boffed’ technological solutions, possibly come up with the correct answer of 8, Kate asked the question to keep the conversation going and to stop Maria’s blood pressure entering the dangerous category.

 

“Connect a tablet loaded with the sensor control app on it to the in-car wifi and you can have an interference grid established that covers the inside of the car and an area of about five metres in all directions around it.”

 

“Oh.”  That wasn’t what Kate had thought the answer was.

 

“The synthetic polymer is a bit like a fire shutter in a building.  The thickness we’ve applied should be enough for the vehicle to keep functioning as a vehicle for one hour or fifty miles if it’s an atmospheric attack at planetary level.  Obviously a banshee screaming in the back seat might be a more intensive assault and cause more rapid degradation but it would be offset by the sensors which are also coated in the polymer…”  Osgood lapsed into silence as she tried to work out what the likely resistance time might be for a Land Rover with a banshee with a functioning secondary larynx sat inside the vehicle.

 

“McGillop!”

 

“Yes Colonel?”  He was tempted to point out she didn’t need to shout when he was stood next to her, but one look on her face, nevermind Kate’s suggested he kept that thought to himself.

 

“You’re coming with me.  We need you and that tablet on the journey back to the Tower.”  Considering all the possible permutations and options available to her, she’d put Carter in command of the Convoy overall, replace Tomkor with herself and put McGillop in the front passenger seat as a result.  Chen could continue to be the back up option with the needles and Gromsky would still be the driver: he’d just be driving one of the new Land Rovers.  “Are you done here?”

 

“Yes, but…”  Confused, McGillop looked from the Colonel to Kate only to be distracted by Osgood stood in between the two other women.  “Oh, hello Osgood.”

 

“Hello McGillop.  That tablet will auto-connect to the Land Rover wifi and you can use the same programme you had for the free-standing combined sensor-transmitter grid here to maintain the on-board grid.”

 

“The car has an inbuilt sensor-transmitter network?”

 

“Yes.”  Osgood blinked and looked slightly baffled as she tried to work out why this was a surprise to everyone.  “Did Jenkins not mention it?” she asked finally, that being the only possibility she could come up with.

 

And that, sighed Kate, watching as Colonel Walsh hurried McGillop down onto the tarmac and across to where their plans were very rapidly being re-arranged, was something else to put on one of her numerous ‘things we didn’t do well’ list.

 

“What did I do?” asked Osgood, confused and slightly hurt at the reaction her perfectly sensible observations had apparently caused.  Before anyone from UNIT could think of how to answer her, they were all surprised by a new voice behind them.

 

“Your case Ma’am?”

 

“I’ve got it,” interjected Max, grateful for the opportunity to step out of the rather intense moment.

 

“Be brilliant,” answered Kate, feeling herself smiling genuinely for the first time in hours.  “And be you.”  She didn’t care if she was gushing.  “Can I give you a lift home?” she asked, suddenly nervous - Osgood could be stubbornly particular about the rules when she wanted to be and Kate belatedly began to doubt the remainder of her plan.

 

“I’ve got to do Immigration and Customs…” Osgood gestured vaguely towards the airport building.

 

“Not today Ma’am.”  Fran held up another bundle of paperwork that she’d produced from somewhere while they’d been talking to Colonel Walsh and took the spare hi-vis vest that Max was holding out from him.  “You’re cleared to leave as part of the Gatekeeper Response Team.”

 

“Do I need to sign anything?” asked Osgood, addressing her question to Fran.  She liked this this idea a lot but trying not to show it, especially as she was now extremely aware of the curious cabin crew still watching the UNIT conversation, no longer having any passengers to distract them. 

 

“Just the Boss…” Fran chuckled when she heard said Boss’ theatrical groan as she opened up her clipboard again and held it out to Kate.  “Initials at the top, signature at the bottom.”

 

“I don’t know what I’d do without you…” said Kate when, initialling and signing completed, she put the top back on the pen and gave it back to Fran.

 

“Do your own paperwork,” came the prompt reply, in unison, from Osgood and Fran, neither realising the other had answered at first.

  
“Come on…” decided Kate, gesturing to Max to lead the way back down to tarmac level.  “I’ve had enough of airports for one day.”


	15. Chapter 15

“I put your things on the back seat Dr Stewart,” announced Jenkins as she and Osgood approached the black estate car Osgood had spotted earlier from the aircraft.

 

“Thanks Jenkins.”  As her driver and transport coordinator extraordinaire moved around to open the car doors for them, Kate could feel Osgood getting ready to tell her that she could go back to the Tower, that she should deal with her ‘things’ and not worry about her, that the ticket upgrade had been spoiling enough.  “And no, they’re not work things,” said Kate, turning to look at Osgood and feeling rather proud of her mind-reading accuracy.  “Well, they are things from work…” she corrected, acknowledging her inner pedant, chewing on her lip as she waited to see how Os would react.

 

“Thanks Max.”  Osgood stepped up to the back of the car where Max had just finished putting her little suitcase in the boot and was holding out his hand for her rucksack, which she dutifully passed to him.  “You coming with us?” she asked, as she took off her duffle coat, the hi vis vest still worn over the top of it, and carefully folded the two up into a neat bundle that she put in the boot next to her coat, having already transferred her inhaler into her trouser pocket.

 

“Have you got your house keys?” Seeing her confused look, he quickly provided a further explanation.  “Mum’s are in her jacket pocket apparently, which is still on the back of her desk chair…”

 

“I’ve got my house keys.”  Osgood put her hand into her other trouser pocket and extracted the neat bunch of keys which she held up in front of her.

 

“Good.  I’ll get a lift back to the Tower.”  He turned his head slightly so he could see both Osgood and Kate who, seeing the airport lights reflect off Osgood’s bunch of keys, knew what he was going to do and gave him a little wave of acknowledgment.  “Enjoy the cheesecake Os,” he added before, with a smile and a quick wink, he turned around and jogged the short distance to where the convoy that had at its centre the now silenced Banshee.

 

“Jenkins?”

 

“Yes Dr Stewart?”  He wanted to be at the back of the car, helping Osgood with her bags, or in the convoy, waiting for the signal to drive somewhere, or even in his little office next to the cars, planning for the next time Dr Stewart needed to be taken somewhere.  There was a reason he was a driver: he liked cars, and driving, and didn’t like talking.  Talking was something he generally tried to avoid doing, something Dr Stewart was very understanding about.

 

“Nobody asked you to explain about the new Land Rovers, did they?”  Kate had deliberately phrased her question so he could give her a yes or no answer, not wanting to torture him any more than she knew this conversation would already be for him.

 

“No Dr Stewart.”  The new Land Rovers were amazing even before Osgood had done her clever stuff with them, but now they were really, really amazing, so amazing that he’d actually be happy to talk about them to anyone and everyone within the right circles of UNIT for hours on end if he thought they’d listen.  But she was right - nobody had asked him.

 

“Did anyone tell you we were going to Heathrow to collect a banshee?” asked Kate, understanding that her driver of few words wouldn’t have been comfortable imposing himself on other people to tell them about the new cars.  It was one thing for Jenkins to find a topic worthy of talking about, but quite another to actually get him to spontaneously start talking about it.  He was one of the quietest men at the Tower, and in some people’s opinion a completely ridiculous choice for Greyhound One’s driver and general transport coordinator, but ‘some people’ weren’t the ones who got to decide that.  Kate, in contrast, had found him to be someone who understood the value of silence and used his words with a care and precision that she had appreciated from her first days at the Tower.  He hadn’t said much, but what he’d said had been well worth listening to and he was clearly listened to by others as well.  She’d not listened on her first day but one of her many skills was being a quick learner, and by her second day she’d learned to listen to him.  By the end of her first week he was her permanent driver and by the end of her first month she’d discovered that the days the transport arrangements worked and she didn’t have Senior Police Officers leaving her angry voicemails about how her organisation was bringing London to a halt and or wasting police time were the days Jenkins had, in his own quiet way, made all the plans.  He’d been in charge of the transportation side of the Tower ever since.

 

“Not until you mentioned it just now Dr Stewart.”  He’d been a bit surprised when Osgood had stopped at the back of the car with Captain Stewart and Dr Stewart had walked on to where he had been standing by the open back door, ready for them to get in.

 

“And if they had?” She already had a fairly good idea what his answer was going to be.

 

“I would have recommended allocating one of the new Land Rovers to be the transfer vehicle as it has the sensor-transmitters added to it Ma’am.”

 

“Tip top.”  Satisfied, she smiled at him.  “Thank you, for everything you’ve done today Tommy.”  She rarely used his first name, but when she did, he knew that whatever she was talking about was extra-sincerely meant, which in turn meant he usually started blushing.  “I know it’s not been easy.”

 

“It’s what I’m here for Ma’am.”  He stood up a little bit straighter and stared squarely ahead, not sure what else to say or do although inside felt ten feet tall.  For a man whose personal definition of a job well done was not being noticed or attracting comment, a compliment like that from Greyhound One was birthday, Christmas and passing his Advanced Driving Test all rolled into one.

 

“We’ll agree to differ on that one Tommy, just this once,” she teased as she saw Osgood walking around from the back of the car to join her, unable to suppress her yawn.  “I think someone needs to be taken home.”

 

“Of course Dr Stewart.”  He was about to stop there before he remembered something that Fran had pointed out to him that he’d thought was a good idea and definitely worth a few more seconds of talking.  “The hot water Ma’am…”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Mrs Waincroft suggested that you might prefer to pour it now?”  

* * *

  
  


“Anything else?” asked Kate, stood with Fran and Colonel Walsh by the front passenger door of the Land Rover that had one rather sullen Banshee sat in the middle of the back seat, neatly wedged between two economy sized members of Troop - one of the latest unexpected discoveries of the day was that a new Land Rover back seat didn’t have enough room to accommodate three people if two of them were the broader, larger members of Troop.

 

“That’s everything for UNIT, Home Office and DEFRA,” said Fran, only to correct herself, “I don’t mean DEFRA…”

 

“You don’t mean DEFRA because Food and Ag isn’t called DEFRA or because I didn’t actually sign a form declaring that our banshee was dairy free?” asked Kate, her sense of humour still intact much to the relief of Fran and Maria.

 

“Food and Ag isn’t called DEFRA,” agreed Fran, shuffling through her paperwork.  “That’s everything for everyone Ma’am.”

 

“Excellent.”  Kate happily put her pen and reading glasses back in her raincoat pocket.  “Everything ok with you Maria?”

 

“Yes Ma’am.”  She was a senior enough soldier to admit to herself that she’d felt her heart sink when she spotted Kate Stewart coming over to inspect the convoy before they set off on the journey back to the Tower, not because she minded Greyhound One taking an interest, but because the success of the Raffles Drill less than six hours ago now felt a lifetime ago.  That had been the last time something had gone sufficiently to plan - everything since had gone well, but with rather more luck than Maria cared for, and, more pertinently, she knew Greyhound One and General Bambera cared for.  “We’re secure and ready to leave when you are Ma’am.”  Not strictly true, but by the time Kate was ready to leave the last remaining wrinkles that Carter, Stewart and Chen were currently dealing with would be smoothed out.

 

“Tip top.”  Sticking her hands in her trouser pockets, Kate surveyed the line of vehicles ready to leave, knowing that there were more police vehicles to complete the escort waiting at the airport perimeter.  “Anything else I can do to help?” She really didn’t want to go back to the Tower and knew, rationally, that she wasn’t letting anyone down by trying to go home and have an evening off duty.  But like the best leaders, she didn’t like to shirk her duty or abandon her post and her teams prematurely.

 

“No Ma’am.” Colonel Walsh’s answer was delivered with military precision and total certainty, exactly as Kate had expected it would be.

 

“Uh, no thank you Ma’am.”  Fran’s answer however, was a little more hesitant.

 

“Tell me?” encouraged Kate, looking at her experienced PA kindly, knowing that as stressful as today had been, that it had worked was due to the hard work of Fran as, without being able to navigate the web of bureaucracy and administration, they would have got no where.  “The worst I can do is say maybe.”  She’d learnt never to say ‘no’ without qualification when she’d been UNIT Liaison at the Home Office, before her marriage fell apart.  It was a lesson well learned and had been one of the first cornerstones to the foundation upon which ‘Science Leads’ now sat.

 

“Could you work from home tomorrow?  Just catch up on your emails from before today?  Or rewrite those papers you’re supposed to do but keep forgetting about?”  The suggestions came tumbling out of Fran in a breathless rush, surprising them both.  “Oh, I’m…”  She was about to apologise but Kate cut her off.

 

“I can stay out of the Tower,” agreed Kate, smiling easily, not offended by the suggestion - she knew that her absence was sometimes as useful if not more useful than her presence - often Fran managed to take advantage of the afternoons and days when Kate was away in Geneva or at meetings to work her magic.  “What don’t you want me doing?” she asked perceptively, knowing that she had an unfortunate knack of stumbling through precisely what Fran wanted her avoiding at just the wrong time.

 

“Hearing apologies.”  Fran clutched her paperwork tightly to her chest and glanced nervously from Kate to the Colonel and back to Kate again, wondering if she had to dig herself deeper into her hole or whether her boss understood.

 

“I promise to work from home and steer clear of anything to do with what happened today so that you have time to put together the list of everything that didn’t work without people being defensive or trying to pass the blame to others,” promised Kate, knowing Fran’s methods and appreciating the successes they brought.  If Kate was unavailable to everyone, then no one could try and circumvent Fran’s coordinated collation of what actually happened and what was the root cause of what.  If she was in the Tower, then she’d no doubt be ambushed by people wanting to try and convince the boss that they’d done the best they could but if only so and so had cooperated a bit more…. “Would you like me to see if we can get some babysitters?”

 

“I can manage, thank you Ma’am….” There was a hint of frost appearing in Fran’s tone that Colonel Walsh hadn’t heard before.

 

“I meant actual babysitters Fran, to blow noses and change nappies.”  Fran blushed when she realised she’d missed one of Kate’s slightly odd jokes again.  “If our otherwise talented staff insist on behaving like toddlers, I’m happy to put the right people in place.  Just as Maria needs her fitness instructors and quartermasters,” Kate smiled at the Colonel as she spoke, trying to convey to the obviously slightly lost woman that she was merely being an example, not actually being critiqued, “if you need specialists to keep the children in line, tell me.”  Kate was about to continue but saw, to her relief, that her words had been sufficient to reassure Fran.

 

“Yes Ma’am.  Thank you.”  Good humour restored, Fran’s shoulders unset.  “The threat of the naughty step seems to be enough at the moment, but I’ll consider a creche… my nephews seem to enjoy the soft play area at the leisure centre…” She paused, wondering if it was now her turn to have not quite hit the mark with attempted humour.

 

“I’ll have to borrow Os’ nieces and go on a field trip,” declared Kate, grinning at her PA, amused at the idea although she wasn’t entirely clear what a soft play area at a leisure centre might be.  “They didn’t exist when mine were that small.”  She knew Fran’s nephews were only just in school, so maybe Os’ nieces were a bit too big.   “Or maybe some of Max’s cousins….Would it work for the Dogs Maria?”

 

“A soft play area?”  Having children that were younger than Kate, as well as nieces and nephews that were a bit younger again, Maria did actually have a good idea what a soft play area was.  The idea of the soldiers of Troop sliding down into ball pits and climbing over foam shapes was an amusing one.  “I think they’d enjoy it rather too much Ma’am.”  

 

“Good to know.”  Kate looked past the two women and eyed up the convoy which was now looking ready, unlike a few moments ago when there were still a few people dashing between vehicles.  “Captains Stewart and Carter appear to be finished with their inspections Colonel, and Chen’s sorted out whatever it was that you’d asked him to check…”  Kate almost chuckled out loud when she saw Maria’s expression twitch - she’d been perhaps a little too observant for the Colonel.  “Fran, I promise to work from home and stay out of mischief.  Can you let HR know Osgood’s on leave please?”  Seeing her request confirmed by Fran’s nod, Kate decided she really had had quite enough of standing around on the tarmac of Heathrow.  “Tip top.”  She turned and with a final wink and grin,started to walk back the car that she and Osgood were travelling in. 

* * *

 

“Was that?” Maria looked at Fran, fairly confident she’d just been given the order to leave but not totally certain.

 

“Greyhound One giving the order to go home?” asked Fran, remembering that Maria Walsh had actually only been at the Tower for three months and so was still getting used to Kate Stewart’s unique style.  “Yes.”

  
“Right.”  There was a long pause as Maria watched Kate approach the car and start to take off her raincoat and hi vis vest, clearly planning on bundling them into the boot of the car.  “Right!” Startled into action, she spun round and started waving and gesturing, giving the orders that brought the almost slumbering convoy into a rather more awake and alert state, with headlights and red and blue flashing lights suddenly blazing.  Ready or not, it was time for them to go back to the Tower… time to show Greyhound One they could actually manage to do something on their own…


	16. Chapter 16

“Thank you Jenkins.”  Kate, raincoat in the boot of the car, her lanyard full of passes still hanging heavily around her neck, gratefully slipped into the car, glad she didn’t have to haul the heavy reinforced door shut behind her.  Sinking back into the seat, glad of her first moment of ‘off duty’ time in hours, she let her shoulders relax back into the seat as she pulled off the heavy necklace of passes and let them drop into her lap.  Just when she felt her head come to rest against the headrest and her eyes slipped closed, she felt a warm weight push insistently up against her hip.  “Comfy?” she asked lazily, turning her head towards the centre of the car and opening one eye slowly, only slightly aware of Jenkins getting in the driver’s seat and the car smoothly setting off to tuck into the rear of the convoy.

 

“Nearly…” Osgood shifted the hot water bottle so that it was better positioned - she wanted it against her hip and side, and Kate was the ideal hot water bottle prop, but she needed to be just a little more...Osgood realised what the issue was and decided Kate was in the wrong place.  “Shift over please?” she asked, moving back towards the driver’s side of the car, so Kate had space to shift across the back seat a bit so she was sitting as near to the centre of the vehicle as her seatbelt would allow.  Satisfied with Kate’s repositioning, Osgood returned the hot water bottle to where she’d first put it, resting against Kate’s side and snuggled up to it comfortably.  Kate, familiar with what her girlfriend was trying to do, obligingly shifted slightly so she was sat at an angle on the seat, with her knees pointing towards the door, meaning Osgood could get her left foot comfortably in the same footwell space that Kate’s feet were in.  Using her right foot to brace herself against the central hump of the floor, Osgood was able to curl up against Kate’s side, the hot water bottle filled with the hot water from the thermos sitting snugly between them.  With her scarf wrapped loosely round her neck, and her fingers tangled with Kate’s, Osgood finally let herself notice how achy and tired she felt.  But as she let her throbbing head rest on Kate’s shoulder, her glasses knocked askew, she didn’t care because as contorted as her posture might be, as cramped as the seat was compared to her business class seat and as not fluffy as Kate’s shoulder was compared to the pillows in the hotel, she was the most comfortable she had been all day.  

 

Feeling Osgood trying to twitch her glasses back into a comfortable place, Kate reached up with her left hand and gently pulled them off her girlfriend’s face, aware that in doing so she turned Osgood’s world blurry and fuzzy, but only if she kept her eyes open.

 

“Have a snooze Os…” encouraged Kate quietly, turning her head and kissing the soft brown hair that was all that was in range given their position.  “I’ll wake you up when we’re home…”

 

“M’kay…” mumbled Osgood, snuggling even more deeply into Kate and the car seat, practically asleep even before she’d finished shuffling about. 

 

As they passed through the airport perimeter, collecting the rest of their police escort, Kate gently eased the now properly sleeping Osgood into a slightly more comfortable position for them both.  She was just about to extract her blackberry from her left trouser pocket when she remembered her reading glasses were in the pocket of her raincoat.  Glad of a reason other than just not being in the mood to work, Kate was content to instead watch the world go by, bathed in alternating flashes of red and blue light as their convoy roared down the M4.  

* * *

  
  


They went their separate ways when they got to the Marylebone Road, with the majority of the convoy continuing on into the end of the evening rush hour traffic of central London as they pushed on to the Tower.  Jenkins, the blue lights flashing in their radiator grille, rear window and wing mirrors, accompanied by two, no three police motorbikes realised Kate, spotting the one paused across the side road that was stopping the traffic that had the green traffic light, had turned off, avoiding the rush hour traffic and heading for the house.  Knowing that while it was still a reasonable distance, their escort would mean it wouldn’t be very many minutes until they were turning into their drive, Kate set about trying to get the now properly asleep Osgood to wake up.

 

“Os?”  Her gentle enquiry brought no response, prompting her to try again, this time accompanied with a bit of shuffling to see if the movement of her ‘pillow’ was enough to rouse Osgood.

 

“O-sss…” groaned Kate quietly when it became clear that while her shuffling had triggered a response from Osgood, it was the wrong response in that Osgood was now holding onto Kate’s shirt with her right hand and two fingers were in danger of pushing through the gap between a couple of the buttons.  “Wake up Os,” encouraged Kate, taking the precautionary step of trapping Osgood’s curious right hand with her own left one.  “We’re almost home.”

 

“Momfy…” Although mumbled and decidedly indistinct, Osgood’s views on being expected to wake up and get ready to move were clear - she wanted no part in either.

 

As they turned the corner, their journey home nearly complete, Kate realised that she was either going to have to resort to underhand tactics or just hope that the car slowing to a stop when they made it home was enough to wake up Osgood.  Knowing that Osgood would prefer, in the long run, to have a few moments to gather her wits before they had to get out of the car and say good night to Jenkins, Kate decided the risk of short term grumpiness was worth it.

 

“Os?”  She shuffled again, trying to shake Osgood into rousing a little.  “O-sss?”

 

“Mmm…” Osgood roused, but only enough to shift her head so it was more comfortably pillowed against Kate’s chest rather than shoulder.

 

“Osgood, wake up!” whispered Kate sharply, knowing what was coming and biting her lip so she remembered not to let her resolve weaken.

 

“No…” Grumbling, Osgood’s fingers wriggled until they were definitely through the gap in between Kate’s shirt buttons, automatically starting to lightly scratch and stroke the bit of Kate she found there.  At the same time, her head shifted up and across her ‘pillow’, meaning her mouth and nose found the open neck of Kate’s shirt, or rather, found Kate through the open neck of her shirt.

 

“Osgood!”  This time, Kate wasn’t even having to act like she was whispering through gritted teeth as Osgood’s nose twitched and she used her lips and tongue to check what her face was resting against.  The first few times this had happened, Kate had sworn that Osgood was actually awake and just playing hard to get, but had come to terms with the fact that this was genuine behaviour and Osgood was still asleep enough for it to be instinctive rather than deliberate.  “Osgood, stop that!  Your mother’s here….”

* * *

  
  


If he hadn’t been concentrating on the road ahead and determined at all times to not see what Dr Stewart was doing in the back of the car so as to give her some sense of privacy, Jenkins might have laughed at how quickly Osgood went from being asleep on Dr Stewart to sitting primly in her seat, her hands folded tidily in her lap and her eyes fixed firmly on the view either through the windscreen if like today she was sat in the middle or, if not, then looking out the passenger window.  But since he couldn’t laugh at what he hadn’t seen, he kept his expression neutral and his eyes on the road.

 

“We’re almost there Dr Stewart.”

 

“Thank you Jenkins, for everything today.”  Passing Osgood her glasses, Kate absently straightened her shirt and thought about unrolling her sleeves before she remembered she had neither her cufflinks nor suit jacket with her.  “I know Fran will be after you for your reports tomorrow.”

 

“Of course Ma’am.”  He indicated that they were turning right and, checking his mirrors despite the escort riders already signalling he was clear to turn, he smoothly swung the big estate car into the driveway that was outside the house Dr Stewart and her family called home.

 

“She’s confined me to quarters, so you should get some peace,” continued Kate conversationally, distracted by the Rowan tree she’d planted in the middle of the small front lawn that sat just behind the hedge and which appeared to have a couple of broken branches in it.

 

“So you won’t be needing the car tomorrow?”  Jenkins didn’t like talking more than necessary, but he did like being clear on what was expected of him and sometimes Dr Stewart’s statements left him actually wanting to ask a question.

 

“No thank you, at least…” Kate suddenly remembered she’d accidentally scheduled a bit of a dinner party.  “Could I volunteer you to bring Dr Onurosie here from the Tower tomorrow evening please?  I’ve invited her to dinner.”

 

“Of course Ma’am.  Is it the usual time?”  Thanks to his position, Jenkins knew rather more about the rhythms and patterns of the Lethbridge-Stewart Osgood household than most people, and since tomorrow was Thursday, that suggested Dr Onurosie had been invited to the ‘family dinner’.

 

“Yes, I suppose so…” Kate realised she hadn’t actually thought through the details.

 

“Of course Ma’am.  I’ll get the final timings from Mrs Waincroft tomorrow.”  He may be a man of few words, but Jenkins was diplomatic with the few he did use.  

 

“Thank you Tommy…” Kate took off her seatbelt and opened the heavy car door, finding them easier to open than close, knowing she’d probably made him blush again.  “Coming out this side Os?” she asked, not sure what Osgood was going to do.

 

“Yes.  Thank you Jenkins, that was a lovely journey home.”  Osgood smiled at him and adjusted her glasses as she did so, for once oblivious to how askew her bowtie was.

 

“You’re very welcome Osgood.”  He’d tried calling her Ma’am, and Miss, but finally, after a gentle battle of wills they’d both reached an unspoken agreement - he’d call her Osgood and she’d call him Jenkins.  “Are you ok with the door?”

 

“Yes thank you.”  Scrambling out of the car, Osgood took a firm hold of the door and gave it a solid push, putting enough force into it that the door swung properly shut.  That was the other part of their deal - he’d offer to help with the doors, she’d mostly insist she was fine.  At first he’d tried to insist but when she’d explained how physics made it quite straightforward and easy to both open and close the armoured doors if you just knew how to apply the pressure, he’d conceded defeat - if she had physics on her side, he knew he was beaten.

 

Meeting Kate at the boot, he passed them their coats and bags before returning to the driver’s door.

 

“Good night Dr Stewart, Osgood.”

 

“Good night Jenkins, and thank you.”

 

Kate and Osgood watched him get back into the car and turn off the flashing blue lights before, as Osgood went on and opened the front door, Kate wandered over to the rowan tree to inspect the possible damage, their coats clutched against her.

 

“Kate!”

 

“Mmm?”  She turned and looked back at Osgood, who was standing in the porch in her socks, having already taken her boots off before she realised she’d been on her own when she went into the hall.  “There’s a broken branch caught in the canopy…”

 

“Get Max and Gordy to pull it out tomorrow when they come for supper,” advised Osgood pragmatically, not sure whether to marvel or despair at how quickly Kate could put aside thoughts of almost anything else if there was a garden related something to distract her.

 

“That’s a good idea,” agreed Kate, turning back to inspect the tree, no longer thinking about how she could pull the branch out herself now, but what other light pruning would be beneficial to the tree.  “That branch looks mostly dead, they could cut it out from that fork…”

 

“KATE!”

 

“Yes Os?”  Recognising that particular tone of shout, she turned around so she could look properly at Osgood, absently shifting the bundle of coats from her left arm to her right one in the process.

 

“My passport, it’s in my coat pocket.”  Not that she needed it right that second, but it was generally her preference to not leave it there for too long in case she forgot that was where it was.

 

“Oh.”  It took Kate a second to realise that she was holding both coats in her arms.  “Oh!  Sorry Os…” Obediently, she strode out across the small patch of lawn and onto the gravel driveway before finally arriving at the front door.  “My feet are wet.”

 

“They would be,” agreed Osgood, taking the bundle of coats from Kate and heading back into the warmth of the hall to start separating the airport hi vis outer layer from their own coats, with the hi vis going back to the Tower at the earliest opportunity.  “Since you’re wearing your heels,” she added, drawing Kate’s attention to her rather soggy shoes.

 

“What are you going to do with me?” joked Kate as she stepped out of her shoes, knowing they’d brush clean when they were dry, before stepping into the hall and shutting the front door behind her.

 

“Ask you to make me cake,” decided Osgood, hanging up her spare duffle coat on top of her more usual one as she felt Kate’s hands slip around her waist.

 

“I can do that…” Kate rested her chin on her girlfriend’s shoulder, just content to hold her and enjoy her presence for a moment.

 

“While I have a bath?” hinted Osgood, not disliking being hugged by Kate but liking the idea of going and having a nice long soak in their bath, with their hot water that ran nice and hot and their bubble bath that didn’t make her sneeze or cough.

 

“Of course.  I’ll…”  Before Kate could complete her suggestion, her blackberry started to ring, prompting her to groan and Osgood to reach deftly behind her and into Kate’s trouser pocket.  Extracting the phone, she saw on the display that the caller was someone Kate probably did need to talk to.

 

“Talk to Win Bambera,” said Osgood, taking matters into her own hands when Kate groaned again and made no attempt to stop holding Osgood and start talking to the General.  “Hello Win, it’s Osgood.”  Without any further ceremony, Osgood thrust the phone up to Kate’s ear, forcing her to take hold of it and spun out of Kate’s grasp.  “I’m going to unpack and have a bath,” she added, not caring if Win heard as she paused long enough to wriggle out of Kate’s remaining hand and give her a quick kiss on the cheek.  “Talk to Win,” she repeated, before picking up her small suitcase and heading upstairs.

 

“Win.”  As she spoke, Kate watched Osgood disappear, unable to stop the weary sounding sigh escape when she saw her girlfriend disappear around the turn in the stairs.  “How’s things?” she asked, forcing her attention back to the phone call and picking up Osgood’s rucksack, knowing that was where the Toblerone was.

 

At least she could make the cheesecakes while she spoke to Win.

 

* * *

  
  


“Knock knock?”  Kate waited for some sort of acknowledgment from Osgood before she pushed open the ajar bathroom door, not wanting to intrude at an inopportune moment.

 

“Hi…” Osgood scooped up a handful of bubbles and, as Kate appeared in the bathroom, she blew them in her direction.

 

“Funny…” Taking care not to let the blobs of soap bubble land in either of the two wine glasses that she carried, Kate came into the bathroom and instinctively smiled when she saw Osgood, sat amongst the bubbles, her hair caught up on her head with a hair clip, wearing her black framed glasses.  “Wine?”  She leaned down over Osgood and, as she handed the glass of white wine to her, dipped her head so she could kiss Osgood, their lips meeting for a long moment and then separating as both necks and backs protested.  “Hello…” Sitting down on the floor, the thick carpet and bath mat providing comfortable cushioning, Kate leaned against the side of the bath.

 

“Thank you…” Osgood took a sip of her wine and then passed the glass back to Kate, who put her own glass safely on the floor - within reach but out of harm’s way.  “This is nicer than the tube, or Geneva.”  She leaned back in the bath, the tops of her shoulders disappearing into the bubbles again as she sank back into the warm water.

 

“How are you feeling?” Idly, Kate trailed her finger through the foam and scooped up a bit on the end of her finger, which she proceeded to then paint onto the end of Osgood’s nose, earning her the anticipated dirty look, although Osgood made no move to de-sud the end of her nose.

 

“Better…”  The dirty look directed at Kate morphed into a cross-eyed glare at the end of her nose.  “Being home’s nice.”  If she tried to remove the bubbles with her hand, she knew she’d only end up with more bubbles smeared on her glasses.  Based on how her nose was feeling, it was clear that Kate had managed to get the bubbles to sit on the top of her nose and blowing was going to have no impact on the bubbles.  She looked back at Kate, trying to ignore the little shadow of bubble she could see as she looked at the rather amused looking bubble placer.  “You’re proud of yourself, aren’t you?”

 

“Yup.”  Grinning, Kate reached forwards with her dry finger and carefully wiped the bubbles off Osgood’s nose, before dipping her fingertip in the bath water, enabling the bubbles to float free and drift across the water propelled by the ripples she made with her fingertip until they collided with a bigger clump of bubble.  “Sorry about the banshee - that wasn’t part of the plan.”

 

“There was a plan?”  Reaching out, Osgood took the glass of wine Kate was holding and took a sip before handing it back to Kate, content to share the wine in the glass that was notionally Kate’s before then sharing the wine in the other one that she’d started with.

 

“Of sorts,” agreed Kate, taking a sip herself before continuing, not taking offence at Osgood’s inference.  “I called a Gatekeeper Response at the 11am meeting, but I didn’t find out about the banshee until mid afternoon, after we’d talked.”

 

“So you had already called for a Gatekeeper then?” asked Osgood, sinking down lower in the water, enjoying the warmth that enveloped her neck as she stopped with her chin just resting on the surface.  “And who was the target since you didn’t know about the banshee?”

 

“I wanted to see what happened, how prepared we were.”  Kate tapped her fingertip through the water, sending pulses of ripples up towards Osgood’s chin.  “And there wasn't one..." Kate watched a few more ripples drift towards Osgood, who was happy to lie back in the warm water and wait for Kate to finish in her own time. "I was going to nominate you as the target, so they had a deadline to work to."  She experimented with drawing letters in the foamy water....K was too spiky, but O worked really well,  and soon she became lost in swirling O after O, the ripples getting bigger and bigger.  "I know why Geneva had to let her through... Know why she was on your plane..."   
  
"I'm here." Osgood reached up and caught Kate's finger, stopping the swirling which was going to start making them dizzy.  "And she's at the Tower."   
  
"In a deep, damp cell..." Kate looked up at Osgood, smiling wryly. "According to Maria, she kept trying to wail all the way down the Embankment, so we were legitimately entitled to note that a cell with metal or plastic was out."   
  
"Of course." Osgood mentally reviewed what she remembered about the banshee's enhanced vocal abilities. "The sensor transmitter grid is effective but probably isn't nice for her, a bit like listening to white noise.  But the medieval parts of the Tower are stone...secure and no need for the grid or injections."   
  
"Five star treaty compliance, but with bonus cold, damp and dark."  There was something in Kate’s smile that reassured Osgood - it would have probably worried or alarmed other, less experienced Kate Stewart observers, who would have no doubt confused the spark of amusement starting to appear in her expression with a more sinister or alarming delight at the banshee’s discomfort.  But for Osgood, it was a wholly positive thing - confirmation that Kate, her Kate, was there, returning to the surface ready to stick her hands in her pockets and ask a passing cyberman if they had any opinions on the best potting compost for geranium cuttings and what their pruning strategy was for wisteria.   
  
"Has anyone ever told you that you'd make a very good evil genius?" As she asked the question, Osgood sat up more and leaned forward, towards Kate.   
  
"No." Kate caught her lip in her teeth as she shifted forwards so she could meet Osgood part way.    
  
"Well you would."   
  
"I rather like being one of the good guys..."    
  
"I rather like you..." Osgood turned her head slightly, enabling their lips to brush together. "Rather a lot...." This time, when their lips touched, it was for longer than a moment, and rather more than a brush...   
  
"I’m getting cold,” pointed out Osgood reluctantly when their lips eased apart a short while later.

 

“The water’s getting cold.”  Kate trailed her finger through the almost bubble free water.  “I could turn on the hot tap?” she suggested, glancing back and deciding that she could reach the hot tap from where she was sat.  As she turned back to face Osgood however, she was met with a decidedly grumpy looking girlfriend, prompting her to wonder what she’d done wrong.  “Os?”

 

“That was supposed to have been a hint.” Osgood adjusted her glasses, forgetting that she was sitting in a bathtub of soap bubbly water and ending up with wet sudsy streaks across the lens, making her huff even more.  Fortunately, it also forced her to give in and take the glasses off, meaning that she didn’t see Kate’s poor attempt at not looking amused - she did find grumpy Os very endearing.  This however, made Osgood even more grumpy, something Kate found equally more endearing - they had ended up having oddly comical rows as a result of such a standoff on more than one occasion in the past.

 

“That I wasn’t supposed to turn on the hot water tap?”  Not wanting to have a row, Kate elected to be corrected instead.

 

“No.   Pass a dry flannel please?”  

 

“Okay…” Reaching out and grabbing the dry flannel from the little shelf bit behind Osgood, Kate tried to work out what else she might have been expected to infer from her girlfriend’s hints while Osgood dried her glasses.  “Ah.”

 

“Ah?”  Glasses cleaned and vision restored, Osgood watched with interest as Kate climbed onto her feet and went over to the heated towel rail.

 

“Getting warmer?” asked Kate, meaning was her intention to pass Osgood some fluffy warm towels as she got out of the bath the right response to the hint.

 

“No, because the water’s cold.”  Feeling very grumpy about her irrational grumpiness, Osgood forced herself to sit up and then stand up, preparing to step out of the bath, not bothered about pulling the plug until she was warmer.  “But a towel’s a start,” she agreed as, stepping out of the bath she was immediately enveloped in a mixture of fluffy warm towel and girlfriend.  “I’m sorry.”

 

“Nothing to be sorry about,” assured Kate, kissing Osgood’s nose as she stepped away and grabbed another towel that this time, she wrapped around Os’ shoulders, coincidentally enabling her to keep hold of Osgood in a gentle hug once the towel was in place and wet skin was protected from chilling draughts.  “Nothing nice about being cold,” she continued, starting to run her hands up and down her girlfriend’s back, her long smooth strokes unimpeded by the more usual obstructions of duffle coat or jumper or lab coat.  “Am I getting warmer now?” she asked, punctuating her question with a teasing kiss to the line of Osgood’s jaw as she continued the more serious business of making sure that her girlfriend was indeed getting warmer - with Osgood’s asthma and allergies, a chill could all too quickly become a chest infection, something that Kate definitely didn’t want her lover to have to suffer.

 

“We both are…” Osgood realised that she didn’t actually need to use either hand to keep her towels in place at this precise second, which meant she could put them to a far more useful purpose.

 

“Mmm, Os?”  Kate had long ago stopped pretending that she was indifferent to attention lavished on that particular spot on her neck that somehow only Osgood had ever found.

 

“Busy...” came the mumbled response as Osgood set about confirming that her initial spot had been, as she’d expected it would be, the perfect spot.

 

“Yes, but…” Arching her neck back in a mixture of trying to keep out of Osgood’s reach while also making it easier for her to reach that spot, Kate found herself needing to take a step backwards to keep her balance, a step that Osgood not only matched by tried to repeat, turning them around in the process.  If she hadn’t only been wearing a couple of carefully balanced bath towels, she would have probably been successful but instead, managed to distract herself from Kate when the towel slipped off her shoulders and the air felt cool on her still damp upper back.

 

“Cold!” In absolute terms, it wasn’t cold enough to warrant Osgood’s instinctive pushing away from Kate and rapid searching for the towel to put back around her shoulders, but the relative change in sensation as warm fluffy towel was replaced by slight air movement over wet skin was enough to trigger Osgood’s highly developed reaction to cold: carefully honed since childhood, it was a vital self-protection mechanism that had seen her avoid severe asthma attacks at inopportune times and chest infections.  Unfortunately, it also served to push Kate away from her, with sufficient force to unbalance the blonde.  Taking what was supposed to be a steadying step, Kate’s heel instead caught the side of the bath which was, thanks to their unnoticed turning earlier, now behind Kate.   By the time Osgood had reclaimed the dropped towel from the floor and returned it to her shoulders, Kate was no longer standing in front of her, but was instead sitting at a rather awkward angle over the side of the bath, which thanks to the plug’s secure fit over the drain, was still rather full.

 

“I’m sorry?” ventured Osgood finally, after three blinks, having worked out what must have happened in order to explain how and why Kate was now sat fully dressed in the bath.

 

“Only if it was deliberate,” was Kate’s pragmatic response, holding out her hand that wasn’t helping to keep her from totally submerging for Osgood to take.  “And you now push instead of pull,” she added, just in case Osgood developed a sudden fondness for pranks.

 

“Accidental,” confirmed Osgood as she took a firm grasp of Kate’s hand and gently helped her to first sit up, balanced precariously but less wetly on the side of the bath, then on to standing.  “And I promise not to do it again, deliberately,” she added, peering around Kate’s side to consider the extent of her soaking.

 

“Or mention it to the boys?” checked Kate as she set about undoing her shirt buttons, guessing from how wet her trousers felt that the tucked in tails of the shirt would probably not be dry.

 

“Or mention it to the boys,” came the sincere agreement as, aware of the irony, Osgood passed her second towel to Kate in exchange for the now unbuttoned shirt.  “You want to hang these up to dry overnight?”

 

“Probably best.”  Kate set off back to their bedroom, intending to change into something drier there.  “I’d only come up to drop off the wine and let you know I’d lit the fire…” She stepped out of her wet suit trousers at the bottom of their bed and headed to the dresser to find something to change into.  “Os?”  Turning back when she hadn’t heard anything from her girlfriend, she saw Osgood holding up her wet suit trousers in one hand, and her only slightly damp shirt in the other.

 

“Where are your cufflinks?”

 

“At the Tower, with my jacket and keys.  I’ll ask Max to bring them with him tomorrow.”

 

“Tomorrow?”  First mystery solved, Osgood occupied herself with starting to change into the clothes she’d put out for herself before she had her bath while she waited for this second mystery to be solved.

 

“Thursday, Max is bringing Jess, not sure about Gordy and Soph…” Kate pulled the well worn sweatshirt she’d selected over her head, before adding, “oh, and Rosie, uh…” she extracted her hair from the inside of the sweatshirt’s collar.  “Dr Onurosie, I invited her this afternoon.”  Kate returned to the bed carrying some equally soft and well worn checked pyjama trousers, both garments originally Osgood’s but now, in Osgood’s mind at least, owned by Kate since it had to be years since she’d worn them herself while Kate considered them to still be Osgood’s that she borrowed occasionally, when Osgood wasn’t using them.  “Max met her and realised he remembered her, from the university.”

 

“Ah.”  Osgood concentrated on fastening the buttons on her checked shirt, one of the ones that she still wore more than Kate.

 

“You don’t need to share your cheesecake, I made three.”  There were not many things that Kate was prepared to guarantee would always be in her kitchen given their tendency to have to cancel the online grocery order at the last moment more often than not, but the ingredients to make a cheesecake were usually to be found, although even she’d been surprised when she’d been able to rustle up enough ingredients to make three of them with the Toblerone that Osgood had bought at the airport.  “One for you tonight, one for Max to give to Jess and one for dinner tomorrow night.”

 

“Thank you.”  Osgood wasn’t often a picky eater, but Kate’s chocolate cheesecake made with the ubiquitous Swiss chocolate-nougat confection was something she was particularly fond of, especially when feeling less than brilliant.  Add to that a tendency towards sudden bouts of grumpiness and she became, much to her embarrassment, a selfish non-sharer.  “Why does Max need to bring your jacket tomorrow?” Although the second mystery had been solved, it had brought a third mystery to Osgood’s attention.  “Where are we going to be?”

 

“Not the Tower,” explained Kate, now dressed again, as she picked up the towels and headed into the bathroom to put them back on the towel rail.  “You’ve got a day off…”  She waited until she was back in the bedroom and able to see whether Osgood was getting ready to disagree, which she wasn’t, before continuing, “...and I’m working from home, and not…” she headed straight to Osgood and put her finger on her girlfriend’s lips, forestalling any objections before they materialised, “because I’m hovering, but because I’m keeping out of Fran’s way.”  Seeing no immediate protest, Kate smiled and nipped back to the bathroom to finish putting the towels away, giving Osgood a moment to finish getting dressed.

 

“Oh.”  Osgood sat down on their bed and concentrated on pulling on her socks, having picked thick fluffy ones that would keep her feet warm on the stone covered floor of the kitchen if that was where they ended up eating dinner which, in Osgood’s mind at least, was going to be comprised of a couple of dutiful bites of something savoury before she then had some cheesecake.

 

“Oh?”  Leaning against the bathroom doorframe, the two wine glasses cradled in the fingers of her left hand while she turned out the bathroom light with her right, Kate studied Osgood, trying to work out if she could read anything into her girlfriend’s response.

 

“Would you have time for both?” asked Osgood cautiously, looking up at Kate when she’d finished straightening her socks so the heels were at her heels and the toes were square, in doing so causing her glasses to shift but for once she neither noticed nor fiddled with them.

 

“Both?”  Kate walked over to stand in front of Osgood who, the moment Kate wa almost in arm’s range, parted her legs so it was possible for Kate to stand directly in front of her and then be hugged loosely around her waist, Osgood tipping her head back so she could look up at her girlfriend.  “You mean hover and keep out of Fran’s way?” she checked, lifting some stray strands of soft brown hair away from Osgood’s face which was nodding cautiously.  “I always have time to hover…” Kate dipped her head down so she could kiss Osgood slowly, with a languid tenderness that came from love and companionship as well as lust and passion.  Eventually, when their necks were grumbling in a way they couldn’t ignore, they parted just enough for Kate to step back to give Osgood room to stand up.

 

“It’s not hovering,” corrected Osgood gently, finally returning to what she’d been going to say before Kate gave her no chance.  “Not this time…”  Another day it might be, another day it had been, but not tomorrow: tomorrow, Osgood realised, she was looking forward to pottering about the house, doing what she hadn’t yet done, doing what she hadn’t yet worked out she wanted to do, apart from knowing with total certainty she wouldn’t be doing anything for UNIT...and she would be doing something that meant she could keep Kate company when Kate wanted company, and be kept company when Kate was able.  

 

There had been days in the past when they’d misjudged each other’s ability to cope, to brush off what had happened to them and to carry on as if nothing had happened.  In many ways, compared to those other, earlier days, nothing had happened today that tested their ability to cope - there was remarkably little to brush off, carrying on as if nothing had happened was easily possible because, in many ways, nothing had happened.  There hadn’t been any immediate fallout from Osgood walking away from a review that anyone who mattered knew was pointless; there had been enough immediately uncovered as a result of Kate’s hunch that UNIT was not as on top of its game as it would like to be that, even in the medium term, there would be more fallout from that than from Kate’s incomplete review by Oversight not being completed; there had been an alien that required a Gatekeeper response; they had caught an unregistered alien whose intentions were still unknown but probably less than peaceful.  There had been, for many in UNIT, a number of outcomes and discoveries today that would be remembered as wins and successes, but for Kate and Osgood it was a day of near misses, of bullets dodged and life-changing missiles side-stepped.  It had been a day survived, by luck, judgment and instinct… judgment and instinct they both believed they had, but luck?  Luck was something that was in the hands of others, and something that one day, they both knew might not be there.

 

“Keep me company tomorrow?” asked Kate, holding out her hand to Osgood who took it and accepted the invitation with a squeeze of her hand and a smile.  “I can’t promise not to swear or shout…” she joked as they set off towards the door, their thoughts starting to turn to dinner and cheesecake.

 

“Will you stick to English and French?” asked Osgood, turning out the bedroom light as they passed the switch, it being on ‘her’ side of the door.  “My German’s not very good.”  Kate had, much to her surprise when she’d started working as Home Office liaison to UNIT, discovered an aptitude for learning languages that her O Level studies at school had managed to completely overlook.  She’d fairly quickly not only dusted off her school-girl French but expanded her vocabulary and mastered the nuances of the grammatical structure so that it, when combined with the mimicry talents of a once rebellious teenager, had enabled her to not only follow the rapid-fire French of her Geneva based colleagues but give almost as good as she got.  When she’d then moved to Geneva, it hadn’t been long before her French was not only up to almost full fluency, at least as far as UNIT work required, but her German had gone from clunky schoolgirl to more than adequate and her Italian and Spanish were both good enough to know when she was being talked about.

 

“Your German is excellent,” corrected Kate as they shifted so she was following Osgood down the stairs towards the kitchen, “just rather lacking in swear words.”

 

“Scientific papers shouldn’t have swear words in them,” huffed Osgood goodnaturedly, turning on the light on the hall table when she got to it, which in turn meant they could turn out the overhead light on their way to the kitchen.  “Unless you count…” Kate just about managed to catch that Osgood said something, but what it was she couldn’t decipher, Osgood having mumbled and muttered it more to herself than said it to Kate.

 

“Friend of yours?” asked Kate dryly, knowing Osgood’s languages were far better than she gave herself credit for but understanding that Osgood judged herself by her ability to converse in a language rather than her ability to read the language.  That Osgood was quite comfortable discerning the sense of incredibly complex and varied scientific papers in English, French or German was something Kate knew Osgood was, in her very Osgood way, rather dismissive of, usually with a shrugged declaration that ‘maths was maths in any language’.

 

“Don’t be ridiculous!”  Osgood looked at Kate in horror, adjusting her glasses which she’d finally noticed were definitely askew.  “He doesn’t accept that time is relative OR a dimension!”  Glasses restored to their proper position, her feelings made clear on the subject that Kate had never really caught up with in the first place, Osgood took the virtually forgotten part filled wine glasses from Kate’s hand and headed to the fridge where she correctly assumed there would be the means to top them up.  There was, however, also, her cheesecake.

 

“No you don’t!” teased Kate, all thoughts of scientific idiocy forgotten as she stepped smartly around the kitchen table to intercept Osgood before she got to pudding.  “Eggs on toast first!”

 

“Scrambled with bits?” asked Osgood hopefully, not minding Kate’s intervention - now she’d mentioned it, Osgood realised she was actually hungry, and for something savoury before the cheesecake.  Wine glasses topped up, Osgood leftt Kate’s glass by the fridge and went to sit down at the kitchen table which now had the cheesecake sitting on it, looking very good.  Savoury somethings were suddenly rather overrated and not required.

 

“Scrambled with bits,” agreed Kate, starting to methodically gather up the ingredients exactly as she had done last night, but with one major difference: Osgood was here, as she had been last night, but this time she was in person.  As Kate looked over her shoulder at Osgood who was busy surprising herself with a yawn, Kate couldn’t help but smile.

 

“Os?”

 

“Mmm?”

 

“Lay the table?”

 

“Okay…” And, yawning again, Osgood nodded and moved sleepily towards the drawer with the cutlery in.  “It’s nice to be home…” she mumbled, depositing the handful of cutlery she’d pulled out of the drawer on the table before coming up behind Kate and passing her the smaller assortment she’d extracted for Kate to use to make the eggs.

 

“Yes, it is,” agreed Kate, taking the offered assortment of forks, knives and spoons from Os and putting them next to the heap of ingredients she’d assembled.

 

Home.  Osgood and her, together, making scrambled eggs with bits in: that was home.

 

“Os?”

 

“Mmm?”

 

“Don’t you dare eat that cheesecake before your dinner!”

 

“Mmph…”  

 

Turning around, she had to laugh when she saw Osgood looking at her, the perfect picture of innocence apart from the spoon sticking out of her mouth and the corresponding spoon shaped dent in the side of the cheesecake that was sitting temptingly on the table next to where Osgood had sat down.

 

On second thoughts…. 

 

Opening the fridge door, Kate quickly put the heap of ingredients back inside: they could have the eggs for breakfast - Os made them better than her anyway.

 

“Going to share?” asked Kate, shutting the fridge door behind her and sauntering towards Osgood, reaching out and pulling the forgotten spoon out from her mouth.

 

“What about eggs?”  As she asked the question, Osgood instinctively swiveled around in the kitchen chair so Kate could sit in her lap and help herself to a mouthful, a small mouthful noted Osgood with some degree of relief, of cheesecake.

 

“Breakfast?”

 

“I’ll make them,” volunteered Osgood, opening her mouth and accepting the mouthful of cheesecake Kate was offering her, immediately following it up with a kiss.

 

Home, corrected Kate, leaning into the kiss, her turn to forget about the spoon, home was her and Osgood, together.

  
The eggs, and UNIT, were optional.    


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it.


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